vice secretaries that
the members of the Personnel Policy Board were to work with the
representatives of their respective staffs on racial matters. They
were not expected "to assist Fahy."[14-3]

[Footnote 14-2: Ltrs, James Forrestal to Fahy, 26 Mar
49, and Louis Johnson to Fahy, 18 Apr 49; both in
FC file. See also Ltr, Thomas R. Reid to R. M.
Dalfiume, 12 Feb 65, copy in CMH.]

[Footnote 14-3: Min, Cmte of Four Secretaries Mtg, 26
Oct 48, Office of OSD Historian. The Committee of
the Four Secretaries was an informal body composed
of the Secretary of Defense or his representative
and the secretaries of the three armed services.]

At the same time Secretary of Defense Forrestal was aware that the
interests of a committee enjoying White House support could not be
ignored. His attempt to develop a new racial policy was probably in
part an effort to forestall committee criticism and in part a wish to
draw up a policy that would satisfy the committee without really doing
much to change things. After all, such a departmental attitude toward
committees, both congressional and presidential, was fairly normal.
Faced with the conflicting racial policies of the Air Force and Army,
Forrestal agreed to let the services present their separate (p. 344)
programs to the Fahy Committee, but he wanted to develop a race policy
applicable to all the services.[14-4] Some of his subordinates debated
the wisdom of this decision, arguing that the President had assigned
that task to the Fahy Committee, but they were overruled. Forrestal
ordered the newly created Personnel Policy Board to undertake,
simultaneously with the committee, a study of the department's racial
policy. The board was to concentrate on "breaking down the problem,"
as Forrestal put it, into its component parts and trying to arrive
quietly at areas of agreement on a uniform policy that could be held
in readiness until the Fahy Committee made its report.[14-5]

[Footnote 14-4: Min, War Council Mtg, 12 Jan 49,
Office of OSD Historian; Memo, Secy of War Council
for SA et al., 13 Jan 49, sub: Significant Action
of the Special Meeting of the War Council on 12
January 1949, OSD 291.2. The War Council,