with
the furor set off by the Truman order in 1948.

[Footnote 21-75: Congressional letters critical of the
directive can be found in DASD (CR) and SD files,
1963. See, for example, Ltrs, Fulbright to SecDef,
22 Aug 63, R. C. Byrd to SecDef, 13 Aug 63,
Goldwater to SecNav, 17 Jul 63, Rivers to ASD (M),
3 Oct 63, Gillis Long to SecDef, 8 Aug 63, Bob
Sikes to SecDef, 15 Jul 63. Intense discussion of
the constitutionality of the directive and of
Vinson's bill took place among department officials
during September and October 1963. See the
following Memos: DASD (CR) for ASD (M), 25 Oct 63,
sub: Vinson Bill Comment With Inclosures; ASD (M)
for Under SA et al., 24 Sep 63, sub: H.R. 8460;
Asst Gen Counsel (Manpower) for ASD (M), 4 Sep 63.
All in ASD (M) 291.2.]

[Footnote 21-76: Letters in support of the DOD
Directive can be found in ASD (CR) (68A1006) files,
1963.]

The attitude of the press merely underscored a fact already obvious to
many politicians on Capitol Hill in 1963--equal opportunity in the
armed forces had dwindled to the status of a minor issue in the
greater civil rights struggle engulfing the nation. The media reaction
also suggested that prolonged attacks against the committee and the
directive were for hometown consumption and not a serious effort to
reverse policy. In effect a last hurrah for the congressional
opponents of integration in the armed forces, the attacks failed to
budge the Secretary of Defense and marked the end of serious
congressional attempts to influence armed forces racial policy.[21-77]
The threat of congressional opposition, at times real and sometimes
imagined, had discouraged progressive racial policies in the
Department of Defense for over a quarter of a century. Its abrupt and
public demise robbed the traditionalists in the Department of (p. 552)
Defense of a cherished excuse for inaction.

[Footnote 21-77: A late victim of the anticivil rights
forces in Congress was Adam Yarmolinsky. His
appointment as deputy director of the Office of
Economic Opportunity was wi