e Army, had to take 24
percent of its new recruits from category IV, the low-scoring group.
This figure was later reduced to 18 percent and finally in 1958 to 12
percent.[15-66]

[Footnote 15-65: Ltr, Anna Rosenberg Hoffman to
author, 23 Sep 71.]

[Footnote 15-66: BuPers Study, Pers A 1224 (probably
Jan 59), GenRecsNav.]

The Navy and the Air Force had always insisted their high minimum
entrance requirements were designed to maintain the good quality of
their recruits and had nothing to do with race. Roy Davenport believed
otherwise and read into their standards an intent to exclude all but a
few Negroes. Rosenberg saw in the new qualitative distribution program
not only the chance to upgrade the Army but also a way of "making sure
that the other Services had their proper share of Negroes."[15-67]
Because so many Negroes scored below average in achievement tests and
therefore made up a large percentage of the men in category IV, the
new program served Rosenberg's double purpose. Even after discounting
the influence of other factors, statistics suggest that the imposition
of the qualitative distribution program operated just as Rosenberg and
the Fahy Committee before her had predicted. (_Table 3_)

[Footnote 15-67: Interv, author with Davenport, 17 Oct
71; and Ltr, Anna Rosenberg Hoffman to author, 23
Sep 71.]

Table 3--Percentage of Black Enlisted Men and Women

Service 1 July 1949 1 July 1954 1 July 1956
Army 12.4 13.7 12.8
Navy 4.7 3.6 6.3
Air Force 5.1 8.6 10.4
Marine Corps 2.1 6.5 6.5

_Source_: Memo for Rcd, ASD/M, 12 Sep 56, sub: Integration
Percentages, ASD(M) 291.2.

The program had yet another consequence: it destroyed the Army's best
argument for the reimposition of the racial quota. Upset over the
steadily rising number of black enlistments in the early months of the
Korean War, the Army's G-1 had pressed Secretary Pace in October 1950,
and again five months later with G-3 concurrence, to reinstate a
ceiling on black enlistments. Assistant Secretary Earl D. Johnson
returned the request "without action," noting that the new qualitative
distribution program would produce a "more equitable" solution.[15-6