ction.[17-18] It was a test that could not fail to
impress field commanders desperate for manpower.

[Footnote 17-18: Ibid., p. 35. For a popular report on
the success of this partial integration, see Harold
H. Martin, "How Do Our Negro Troops Measure Up?,"
_Saturday Evening Post_ 223 (June 16, 1951):30-31.]

_Training_

Training units in the United States were subject to many of the
stresses suffered by the Eighth Army, and without fanfare they too
began to integrate. There was little precedent for the change. True,
the Army had integrated officer training in World War II and basic
training at the Women's Army Corps Training Center at Fort Lee,
Virginia, in April 1950. But beyond that only the rare black trainee
designated for specialist service was assigned to a white training
unit. Until 1950 there was no effort to mix black and white trainees
because the Army's manpower experts always predicted a "social (p. 435)
problem," a euphemism for the racial conflict they feared would follow
integration at large bases in the United States.

Not that demands for integration ever really ceased. Civil rights
organizations and progressive lawmakers continued to press the Army,
and the Selective Service System itself complained that black draftees
were being discriminated against even before induction.[17-19] Because
so many protests had focused on the induction process, James Evans,
the Civilian Aide to the Secretary of Defense, recommended that the
traditional segregation be abandoned, at least during the period
between induction and first assignment.[17-20] Congressman Jacob
Javits, always a critic of the Army's segregation policy, was
particularly disturbed by the segregation of black trainees at Fort
Dix, New Jersey. His request that training units be integrated was
politely rejected in the fall of 1950 by General Marshall, who implied
that the subject was an unnecessary intrusion, an attitude
characteristic of the Defense Department's war-distracted feelings
toward integration.[17-21]

[Footnote 17-19: Ltr, Lewis B. Hershey to SA, 21 Sep
50, SA 291.2; Memo, Col W. Preston Corderman, Exec,
Office of ASA, for CofS, 8 Sep 50, sub: Racial
Complaints, CS 291.2. For an example of complaints
by a civil rights organization, see Telg, J. L.