t a careful delineation of each category.[15-7]

[Footnote 15-7: Memo, Head, Strength and Statistics
Br, BuPers, for Head, Policy Control Br, BuPers, 27
Oct 49, sub: Policy Regarding Race Entries, Pers
25-EL, BuPersRecs; Memo, Under SecNav for Chmn,
PPB, 25 Nov 49, sub: Policy Regarding "Race"
Entries on Enlistment Contracts and Shipping
Articles, GenRecsNav; DF, D/P&A to TAG, 18 Oct 49,
same sub, with CMT 2, TAG to D/P&A, 2 Nov 49, copy
in AG 291.2 (11 Oct 49).]

Its ruling under attack from the services, the board made a hasty
appeal to authority. Its chief of staff, Vice Adm. John L.
McCrea,[15-8] recommended that the Army and Navy consult Funk and
Wagnalls _Standard Dictionary_ for specific definitions of the five
racial categories. That source, the admiral explained to the Under
Secretary of the Navy, listed Polynesian in the Malayan category, and
if the Navy decided to add race to its shipping articles, the five
categories should be sufficient. The board, he added, had not meant to
encourage additional use of racial information. The Navy had always
used the old color categories on its shipping articles forms, the
ones, incidentally, favored by Evans, and McCrea thought they
generally corresponded to the categories developed by the board.[15-9]
The admiral also suggested that the Army use the color system to help
clarify the board's categories. He offered some generalizations on
specific Army questions: "a) Puerto Ricans are officially Caucasian,
unless of Indian or Negro birth; b) Filipinos are Malayan; c)
Hawaiians are Malayan; d) Latin Americans are Caucasian or Indian; and
e) Indian-Negro and White-Negro mixtures should be classified in
accordance with the laws of the states of their birth."[15-10] The
lessons on definition of race so painfully learned during World War II
were ignored. Henceforth race was to be determined by a dictionary, a
color scheme, and the legal vagaries found in the race laws of the
several states.

[Footnote 15-8: Admiral McCrea succeeded General
Lanham as director of the board's staff in 1949.]

[Footnote 15-9: Memo, Dir, PPB Staff, for Under
SecNav, 7 Dec 49, sub: Policy Regarding "Race"
Entries on Enlistment Contracts