hts,
_Freedom to the Free: A Century of Emancipation_
(Washington: Government Printing Office, 1963), pp.
158ff.]

[Footnote 20-11: Baltimore _Sun_, August 8, 1962. On
the particular problem in the Aberdeen area see
Telg, President Kennedy to John Field, President's
Cmte on Equal Employment Opportunity, 22 Sep 61,
copy in CMH.]

_The Kennedy Administration and Civil Rights_

The strong connection between black morale and military efficiency
made it likely that the new Secretary of Defense would be intimately
concerned with problems of discrimination. Highly trained in modern
managerial techniques, Robert S. McNamara came to the Pentagon with
the idea of instituting a series of fundamental changes in the
management of the armed forces through manpower reorganization and
what was becoming known as systems analysis. Whatever his attitude
toward racial justice, his initial interest in the Defense
Department's black employees, military and civilian, was closely
linked to his concern for military efficiency. Less than a week on the
job, he called for information on the status of Negroes in the
department. He had heard that some services were better integrated
than others, and he wanted his Assistant Secretary for Manpower to
investigate. He wanted to know if there was a "fair" proportion of
Negroes in the higher civilian grades. If not, he asked, "what do you
recommend be done about it?"[20-12] These questions, and indeed all
action on civil rights matters originating in his office in the months
to come, indicated that McNamara, like his predecessors, would limit
his reforms to discrimination within the services themselves. But as
time passed, McNamara, like President Kennedy, would warm to the civil
rights cause and eventually both would become firmly committed.

[Footnote 20-12: Memo, SecDef for ASD (MP&R)
Designate, 27 Jan 61, ASD (M) 291.2.]

The Kennedy administration has been closely identified with civil
rights, yet the President's major biographers and several of his
assistants agree that his commitment to civil rights reform did not
emerge full-blown on inauguration day. It was only in the last months
of his administration that Kennedy, subjected to civil rights demands
and sharing the interests and experiences of his brot