discounted, the commission found that these two services
consistently employed a significantly smaller percentage of Negroes
than the Army and Air Force. A similar disparity existed in assignment
procedures. The commission found that both services failed to match
the record of the civilian economy in the use of Negroes in technical,
mechanical, administrative, clerical, and craft fields. It suspected
that the services' recruiting and testing methods intensified these
differences and wondered whether they might not operate to exclude
Negroes in some instances.

Despite general approval of conditions on the bases, the commission
found what it called "vestiges of discrimination on some bases." It
reported some segregated noncommissioned officer clubs, some
segregated transportation of servicemen to the local community, and
some discriminatory employment patterns in the hiring of civilians for
post jobs. Partly the legacy of the old segregated services, this
discrimination, the commission concluded, was to a greater extent the
result of the intrusion of local civilian attitudes. The commission's
attention to outside influences on attitudes at the base suggested
that it found the villain of the Diggs investigation, the prejudiced
military official, far too simplistic an explanation for what was in
reality institutional racism, a complex mixture of sociological forces
and military traditions acting on the services. The Department of
Defense's manpower experts dwelt on these forces and traditions when
they analyzed recruitment, promotion, and assignment trends for
McNamara in 1963.[20-81]

[Footnote 20-81: Memo, DepASD (Special Studies and
Requirements) for ASD (M), 16 Jul 63, with
attachment, Utilization of Negroes in the Armed
Forces, July 1963, copy in CMH. All the tables
accompanying this discussion are from the preceding
source, with the exception of Table 16, which is
from the U.S. Department of Labor, Office of Policy
Planning and Research, _The Negro Family: The Case
for National Action_, Mar 64, p. 75, where it is
reproduced from DOD sources.]

They found a general increase in black strength ratios between 1949
and 1962 (_Table 13_). They blamed the "selective" recruiting
practices in vogue before the Truman order for the low e