he National Guard.[21-90]

[Footnote 21-87: The draft was also sent for comment
to the National Guard Bureau; see Ltr, Chief, NGB,
to Gesell, 13 Nov 64, Gesell Collection, J. F.
Kennedy Library.]

[Footnote 21-88: Memo, Gesell for Members of the
President's Committee on Equal Opportunity in the
Armed Forces, 20 Nov 64. The quotation is from Ltr,
Young to Gesell, 23 Sep 64. For the reaction of
other members see, for example, Ltrs, Sengstacke to
Gesell, 9 Oct 64, Muse to Gesell, 16 Sep 64, Fortas
to Gesell, 29 Sep 64. All in Gesell Collection, J.
F. Kennedy Library.]

[Footnote 21-89: Ltr, Gen Wilson, NGB, to Gesell, 13
Nov 64, Gesell Collection, J. F. Kennedy Library.]

[Footnote 21-90: Ltr, President to SecDef, 26 Dec 64,
copy in CMH.]

The radical change in the civil rights orientation of the Department
of Defense demanded by the administration's civil rights supporters
was obviously a task too controversial for the department to assume in
1963 on its own initiative. It was, as a member of the Gesell
Committee later remarked, a task that only a group of independent
citizens reporting to the President could effectively suggest.[21-91]
In the end the committee did all that its sponsors could have wanted.
It confirmed the persistence of discrimination against black
servicemen both on and off the military base and effectively tied that
discrimination to troop morale and military efficiency. The (p. 555)
committee's conclusions, logically derived from the connection between
morale and efficiency, introduced a radically expanded concept of
racial responsibility for the armed forces.

[Footnote 21-91: Interv, author with Muse, 2 Mar 73.]

Although many people strongly associate the Gesell Committee with the
use of economic coercion against race discrimination in the community,
the committee's emphasis was always on the local commander's role in
achieving voluntary compliance with the department's equal opportunity
policies. Economic sanction was conceived of as a last resort. The
directive of the Secretary of Defense that endorsed these
recommendations was also denounced for embracing sanctions,