[Footnote 14-30: Memo, SecDef for SA, 13 May 49, sub:
Equality of Treatment and Opportunity in the Armed
Forces; idem for SecAF and SecNav, 11 May 49, same
sub; DOD Press Release 35-49A, 11 May 42. All in FC
file.]

_The Committee's Recommendations_

If there was ever any question of what their programs should contain,
the services had only to turn to the Fahy Committee for plenty of
advice. The considerable attention paid by senior officials of the
Department of Defense to racial matters in the spring of 1949 could be
attributed in part to the commonly held belief that the Fahy Committee
planned an integration crusade, using the power of the White House to
transform the services' racial policies in a profound and dramatic
way. Indeed, some members of the committee itself demanded that the
chairman "lay down the law to the services."[14-31] But this approach,
Charles Fahy decided, ignored both the personalities of the (p. 349)
participants and the realities of the situation.

[Footnote 14-31: Interv, author with Fahy.]

[Illustration: FAHY COMMITTEE WITH PRESIDENT TRUMAN AND ARMED SERVICES
SECRETARIES. _Seated with the President are Secretary Forrestal and
Committeeman A. J. Donahue. Standing from the left: Chairman of the
Personnel Policy Board Thomas R. Reid; Chief of Staff of the Personnel
Policy Board Brig. Gen. Charles T. Lanham; Committeemen John H.
Sengstacke and William M. Stevenson; Secretary Royall; Secretary
Symington; Committeemen Lester Granger and Dwight R. Palmer; Secretary
Sullivan; and Charles Fahy._]

The armed forces had just won a great world war, and the opinions of
the military commanders, Fahy reasoned, would carry much weight with
the American public. In any conflict between the committee and the
services, Fahy believed that public opinion would be likely to side
with the military. He wanted the committee to issue no directive.
Instead, as he reported to the President, the committee would seek the
confidence and help of the armed services in working out changes in
manpower practices to achieve Truman's objectives.[14-32] It was
important to Fahy that the committee not make the mistake of telling
the services what should be done and then have to drop the matter with
no assurances that anything would be done. He was determined, rather,
to obtain not only a change in policy, but also a "prog