-9 3.0 7.5
Total 100.0 100.0

Table 23--Percentage Distribution of Navy Enlisted Personnel by Race,
AFQT Groups, Pay Grade, and Length of Service, 1962

0-12 Years Over 12 Years
Pay Grade White Negro White Negro

AFQT Groups I & II
E-1 to E-3 50.0 50.4 0.1 0.5
E-4 22.5 21.8 1.0 5.3
E-5 17.8 18.6 6.6 16.8
E-6 8.3 8.5 30.8 33.9
E-7 to E-9 1.4 .7 61.5 43.6
Total 100.0 100.0 100.0 100.0

AFQT Group III
E-1 to E-3 60.6 60.5 0.5 3.5
E-4 20.7 20.4 4.4 14.7
E-5 13.1 14.2 19.3 28.8
E-6 5.1 4.6 40.1 33.7
E-7 to E-9 .5 .3 35.7 19.3
Total 100.0 100.0 100.0 100.0

AFQT Group IV
E-1 to E-3 77.1 61.2 2.2 12.2
E-4 13.0 23.3 14.9 32.6
E-5 7.9 13.0 34.0 29.9
E-6 1.9 2.4 32.4 19.3
E-7 to E-9 .1 [a] 16.5 6.0
Total 100.0 100.0 100.0 100.0

[Tablenote a: Less than .05 percent.]

All these figures could be conjured up when the services had to answer
complaints of discrimination, but more often than not the services
contented themselves with a vague defense of the _status quo_[20-82]
Such answers were clearly unacceptable to civil rights leaders (p. 528)
and their allies in the administration, and it is not surprising that
the complaints persisted. To the argument that higher enlistment
standards were a matter of military economy during a period of partial
mobilizations, those concerned about civil rights responded that,
since marginal manpower was a necessary ingredient of full
mobilization, the services should learn to deal in peacetime with what
would be a wartime problem.[20-83] To pleas of helplessness against
off-base discrimination, the activists argued that these practices had
demonstrably adverse effects on the morale of more than 9 percent of
the armed forces and were, therefore, a clear threat to the
accomplishment of the services' military mission.[20-84]

[Footnote 20-82: See, for example, the follow