retary Wilson reported to President
Eisenhower in March 1955 that the results of integration were
encouraging:

Combat effectiveness is increased as individual capabilities
rather than racial designations determine assignments and
promotions. Economics in manpower and funds are achieved by the
elimination of racially duplicated facilities and operations.
Above all, our national security is improved by the more
effective utilization of military personnel, regardless of
race.[19-106]

[Footnote 19-105: Extracted from an interview given by
Hannah and published in _U.S. News and World
Report_ 35 (October 16, 1953):99. See also Ltr, Lt
Col L. Hill, Chief, Public Info Div, CINFO, to Joan
Rosen, WCBS Eye on New York, 17 Apr 64, CMH Misc
291.2 Negroes.]

[Footnote 19-106: _Semiannual Report of the Secretary
of Defense, January 1-June 30, 1954_ (Washington:
Government Printing Office, 1955), pp. 21-22.]

In other reports he expatiated on this theme, explaining how
integration cut down racial incidents in the services and improved
"national solidarity and strength."[19-107] After years of claiming
the contrary, defense officials were justifying integration in the
name of military efficiency.

[Footnote 19-107: Office of the Assistant Secretary of
Defense, Manpower, "Advances in the Utilization of
Negro Manpower: Extracts From Official Reports of
the Secretary of Defense, 1947-1961." The quotation
is from Secretary Wilson's report, 10 Dec 53.]

Certainly racial incidents in the armed forces practically (p. 500)
disappeared in the immediate post-integration period, and the number
of complaints about on-base discrimination that reached the Pentagon
from individual black servicemen dropped dramatically. Moreover,
supporting Secretary Wilson's claim of national solidarity, major
civil rights organizations began to cite the racial experiences of the
armed forces to strengthen their case against segregated American
society. Civil rights leaders continued to press for action against
discrimination outside the military reservation, but in the years
after Korea their sense of satisfaction with the department's progress
was quite