n short,
wanted racial sensitivity made a function of command.

Command responsibility for equal opportunity, the committee
emphasized, was particularly important "in the area of most pressing
concern, off-base discrimination." It wanted local commanders to
attack discrimination in the community by seeking the voluntary
compliance of local businessmen and by establishing biracial community
committees. The committee asserted that despite the services' claims
to the contrary the Department of Defense had made no serious effort
to achieve off-base compliance with its anti-discrimination measures
through voluntary action. Commanders had been given little guidance
thus far, and a carefully planned program of voluntary action should
be given a chance. If it failed, commanders should be able to employ
sanctions against the offending businesses; if sanctions failed, the
services should consider closing installations in offending areas. The
committee again stressed the need to fix responsibility for the
program on local commanders. A commander's performance should be
monitored and rated, and offices should be established in the
Department of Defense and in the individual services to devise
programs, monitor their progress, and bring base commanders into close
working relationship with other interested and responsible federal
agencies.

Although their recommendations were later excoriated by critics as a
radical usurpation of state sovereignty and a threat to civil
liberties, the committee had meant only to provide a graduated
solution to a national defense problem. Let reform begin with the
local commander's improving conditions on his base and pressing for
voluntary changes in the local community. Only when this tactic
failed--and the committee predicted that failure would be a rare
occurrence--should the services employ economic sanctions.

A firm philosophical assumption underlay all these recommendations.
The committee believed that the armed forces, a worldwide symbol of
American society, had to be the leader in the quest for racial
justice. Social reform, therefore, both within the services and where
it affected servicemen in the community beyond, was a legitimate
military function. To the extent that these reforms were successful,
the armed forces would not only be protecting the civil rights of
black servicemen but also providing a standard against which civilian
society could measure its conduct and other nations co