vy's old habit of restricting them to servant duties.
It wanted the Navy to aim a vigorous recruitment program at the black
community in order to counteract this lingering suspicion. At the same
time the committee wanted the Navy to make a greater effort among
black high school students to attract qualified Negroes into the Naval
Reserve Officers' Training Corps program. To reinforce these campaigns
and to remove one more vestige of racial inequality in naval service,
the committee also suggested that the Navy give to chief stewards all
the perquisites of chief petty officers. The lack of this rating, in
particular, had continued to cast doubt on the Navy's professed
policy, the committee charged. "There is no reason, except custom, why
the chief steward should not be a chief petty officer, and that custom
seems hardly worth the suspicion it evokes." Finally, the committee
wanted the Navy to adopt the same entry standards as the Army. It
rejected the Navy's claim that men who scored below ninety were
unusable in the general service and called for an analysis by outside
experts to determine what jobs in the Navy could be performed by men
who scored between seventy and ninety. At the same time the committee
reiterated that it did not intend the Navy or any of the services to
lower the qualifications for their highly skilled positions.

[Footnote 14-55: Min, War Council Mtg, 24 May 49; Fahy
Cmte, "Initial Recommendations by the President's
Committee on Equality of Treatment and Opportunity
in the Armed Services," attached to Fahy Cmte, "A
Progress Report for the President", 7 Jun 49, FC
file. Excerpts from the "Initial Recommendations"
were sent to the services via the Personnel Policy
Board, which explains the document in the SecNav's
files with the penciled notation "Excerpt from Fahy
Recommendation 5/19." See also Ltr, Kenworthy to
Fahy, 16 May 49, Fahy Papers, Truman Library.]

The committee also suggested to the Air Force that it establish a
common enlistment standard along with the other services. Commenting
that the Air Force had apparently been able to use efficiently
thousands of men with test scores below ninety in the past, the
committee doubted that the contemporary differential in Air Force and
Army stan