s
all,"[21-17] were men with backgrounds in the law and the civil rights
movement, their nearest common denominators being Yale University and
acquaintance with Yarmolinsky, a graduate of Yale Law School.[21-18]
Chairman Gesell was a Washington lawyer, educated at Yale, an
acquaintance of Yarmolinsky's with whom he shared a close mutual (p. 537)
friend, Burke Marshall, also from Yale and the head of the Department
of Justice's Civil Rights Division. Gesell always assumed that this
friendship with Marshall explained his selection by the Kennedy
administration for such a sensitive task.[21-19] Black committeemen
were Nathaniel S. Colley, a California lawyer, civil rights advocate
associated with the NAACP, and former law school classmate of
Yarmolinsky's; John H. Sengstacke, publisher of the Chicago _Defender_
and a member of the Fahy Committee; and Whitney M. Young, Jr., of the
National Urban League. The other members were Abe Fortas, a prominent
Washington attorney and former Yale professor; Benjamin Muse, a leader
of the Southern Regional Council and a noted student of the civil
rights movement; and Louis Hector, also a Yale-educated lawyer, who
was called in to replace ailing Dean Joseph O'Meara of the Notre Dame
Law School. Gesell arranged for the appointment of Laurence I. Hewes
III, of Yale College and Law School, as the committee's counsel.

[Footnote 21-17: Memo, ASD (M) for Lee C. White, Asst
Spec Counsel to President, 7 Jun 62, sub:
Establishment of Committee on Equality of
Opportunity in the Armed Forces, ASD (M) 291.2.]

[Footnote 21-18: In discussing the Yale connection in
the Gesell Committee, it is interesting to note
that at least three other officials intimately
connected with the question of equal treatment and
opportunity, Alfred B. Fitt, the first Deputy
Assistant Secretary of Defense (Civil Rights),
Cyrus R. Vance, Secretary of the Army, and Deputy
Secretary of Defense Gilpatric, were Yale men. Of
course, Secretary McNamara was not a Yale graduate;
his undergraduate degree is from the University of
California at Berkeley, his graduate degree from
Harvard.]

[Footnote 21-19: Inte