career and promotion ladder
was reduced and the Navy left vulnerable to further charges of
discrimination.

[Footnote 16-69: Ltr, Exec Secy, Birmingham, Ala.,
Branch, NAACP, to Chief, NavPers, 14 Mar 50, Pers
A, GenRecsNav.]

As for the shortage of officers, Nelson cited the awareness among
candidates that promotions were slower for blacks in the Navy than in
the other services where there was "less caste and class to
buck."[16-70] Nelson was aware that out of the 2,700 blacks who had
indicated an interest in the reserve officer training program in 1949
only 250 actually took the aptitude tests. Of these, only two passed
the tests and one of these was later rejected for poor eyesight. An
Urban League spokesman believed that some failed to take the tests out
of fear of failure but that many harbored a suspicion that the program
was not entirely open to all regardless of race.[16-71] Reinforcing
this suspicion was the fact that, despite the intentions of the (p. 418)
Bureau of Naval Personnel and the Navy's increasing control over the
appointment process, as of 1965 not a single Negro had been appointed
to any of the 150-man state selection committees on reserve officer
training.[16-72] Also to be considered, as the American Civil
Liberties Union later pointed out, was the promotion record of black
officers. As late as 1957 no black officer had ever commanded a ship,
and while both black and white officers started up the same promotion
ladder, the blacks were usually transferred out of the line into staff
billets.[16-73]

[Footnote 16-70: Interv, Nichols with Nelson, 1953, in
Nichols Collection; Ltr, Nelson to author, 10 Feb
70; both in CMH files.]

[Footnote 16-71: Quoted in Memo, Dir of Tng, BuPers,
for Chief, NavPers, 1 Jul 49, Pers 42, GenRecsNav.]

[Footnote 16-72: Memo for Rcd, Evans, 23 Jun 65, sub:
NROTC Boards, ASD/M 291.2.]

[Footnote 16-73: Ltr, Exec Dir, ACLU, to SecNav, 26
Nov 57, GenRecsNav.]

[Illustration: REARMING AT SEA. _Ordnancemen at work on the deck of
the USS Philippine Sea, off Korea, October 1950._]

Given the pressure on the personnel bureau to develop some respectable
black manpower statistics, it is unlikely that the lack of educated,
black recruits can be b