n, for example, before the director of the NAACP's Washington
bureau was complaining to Secretary of the Air Force Thomas K.
Finletter that the department's five categories were comparatively
meaningless and caused unnecessary humiliation for inductees. He
wanted racial entries eliminated.[15-17] Finletter explained that
racial designations were not used for assignment or administrative
purposes but solely for evaluating the integration program and
answering questions from the public. His explanation prompted much
discussion within the services and correspondence between them and
Clarence Mitchell and Walter White of the NAACP. It culminated in a
meeting of the service secretaries with the Secretary of Defense (p. 385)
on 16 January 1951 at which Finletter reaffirmed his position.[15-18]

[Footnote 15-17: Ltr, Clarence Mitchell to SecAF
Thomas K. Finletter, 13 Dec 50, SecAF files.
Finletter had become secretary on 24 April 1950.]

[Footnote 15-18: Ltr, SecAF to Mitchell, Dir,
Washington Bureau, NAACP, 3 Jan 51, and Ltr,
Mitchell to Asst SecAF, 8 Jan 51, both in SecAF
files; Memo, Edward T. Dickinson, Asst to Joint
Secys, OSD, for SA et al., 17 Jan 51, OSD files.]

There was some justification for the Defense Department's position.
Many of those who found racial designations distasteful also demanded
hard statistical proof that members of minority groups were given
equal treatment and opportunity,[15-19] and such assurances, of
course, demanded racial determinations on the records. Still, not all
the reasons for retaining the racial identification entry were so
defensible. The Army, for example, had to maintain accurate statistics
on the number of Negroes inducted because of its concern with a
possible unacceptable rise in their number and the President's promise
to reimpose the quota to prevent such an increase. Whatever the
reasons, it was obvious that racial statistics had to be kept. It was
also obvious that as long as they were kept and continued to matter,
the Secretary of Defense would be saddled with the task of deciding in
the end which racial tag to attach to each man in the armed forces. It
was an unenviable duty, and it could be performed with neither
precision nor justice.

[Footnote 15-19: Memo, Dep Asst SecAF (Program