id not pose a comparable manpower
problem. They were ignored on the theory that abolition of the quota,
along with the application of more stringent recruitment procedures,
would in time rid the services of its unskilled and unneeded men.

It can be argued that the purpose of the limited integration proposal
was not so much to devise a new policy as to minimize the impact of
change on congressional opponents. Edwards certainly hoped that his
plan would placate senior commanders and staff officers who (p. 342)
opposed integration or feared the social upheaval they assumed would
follow the abolition of all black units. This explanation would
account for the cautious approach to racial mixing in the proposal,
the elaborate administrative safeguards against social confrontation,
and the promised reduction in the number of black airmen. Some of
those pressing for the new program certainly considered the retention
of segregated units a stopgap measure designed to prevent a too
precipitous reorganization of the service. As Lt. Col. Jack Marr, a
member of Edwards's staff and author of the staff's integration study,
explained to the Fahy Committee, "we are trying to do our best not to
tear the Air Force all apart and try to reorganize it overnight."[13-91]
Marr predicted that as those eligible for reassignment were
transferred out of black units, the units themselves, bereft of
essential personnel, would become inoperative and disappear one by
one.

[Footnote 13-91: Testimony of Lt Col Jack F. Marr
Before President's Committee on Equality of
Treatment and Opportunity in the Armed Services, 13
Jan 49, afternoon session, p 46.]

In the end it must be admitted that race relations possess an inner
dynamic, and it is impossible to relate the integration of the Air
Force to any isolated decision by a secretary or proposal by a group
from his military staff. The decision to integrate was the result of
several disparate forces--the political interests of the
administration, the manpower needs of the Air Force, the aspirations
of its black minority, and perhaps more than all the rest, the
acceptance by its airmen of a different social system. Together, these
factors would make successive steps to full integration impossible to
resist. Integration, then, was an evolutionary process, and
Symington's acceptance of a limited integration plan was only one st