the secretary's plan in its narrowest sense,
blocking any possibility of broadening the range of black assignments.

[Footnote 14-100: Memo, Kenworthy for Cmte, 29 Oct 49,
sub: Background to Proposed Letter to Gray, Fahy
Papers, Truman Library.]

[Footnote 14-101: Msg, TAG to Chief, AFF, et al., WCL
45586, 011900Z Oct 49, copy in AG 220.3.]

[Footnote 14-102: Memo, D/PA for TAG, 25 Oct 49, sub:
Assignment of Negro Enlisted Personnel, with
attached Memo for Rcd, Col John H. Riepe, Chief,
Manpower Control Gp, D/PA; Memo, Deputy Dir, PA,
for Gen Brooks (Dir of PA), 3 Nov 49, same sub;
Msg, TAG to Chief, AFF, et al., WCL 20682, 27 Oct
49. All in CSGPA 291.2 (25 Oct 49).]

Kenworthy was able to turn this incident to the committee's advantage.
He made a practice of never locking his Pentagon office door nor his
desk drawer. He knew that Negroes, both civilian and military, worked
in the message centers, and he suspected that if any hanky-panky was
afoot they would discover it and he would be anonymously apprised of
it. A few days after the dispatch of the second message, Kenworthy
opened his desk drawer to find a copy. For the first and only time, he
later explained, he broke his self-imposed rule of relying on
negotiations between the military and the committee and its staff _in
camera_. He laid both messages before a long-time friend of his, the
editor of the Washington _Post_'s editorial page.[14-103] Thus
delivered to the press, the second message brought on another round of
accusations, corrections, and headlines to the effect that "The Brass
Gives Gray the Run-Around." Kenworthy was able to denounce the
incident as a "step backward" that even violated the Gillem Board
policy by allocating "Negro spaces" in overhead units. The Army
staff's second message nullified the committee's recommendations since
they depended ultimately on the unlimited assignment of black
specialists. The message demonstrated very well, Kenworthy told the
committee, that careful supervision of the Army's racial policy would
be necessary.[14-104] Some newspapers were less charitable. The
Pittsburgh _Courier_ charged that the colonel blamed for the release
of the second message had been made the "goat" in a case that invol