ons.
"Avoid civil rights spectaculars" was the White House's word to the
executive departments while the civil rights act hung fire.[22-1]

[Footnote 22-1: Quoted in Ltr, Fitt to author, 22 May
72; see also Interv, author with Jordan, 7 Jun 72.]

The lack of pressure by black servicemen and civil rights advocates
lent itself to official procrastination. Civil rights organizations,
preoccupied with racial unrest throughout the nation and anxious for
the passage of new civil rights legislation, seemed to lose some (p. 557)
of their intense interest in service problems. They paid scant
attention to the directive beyond probing for the outer limits of the
new policy. In the months following the directive, officials of the
NAACP and other organizations shot off a spate of requests for the
imposition of off-limits sanctions against certain businesses and
schools and in some cases even whole towns and cities.[22-2] When
Defense Department officials made clear that sanctions were to be a
last, not first, resort and offered the cooperation of local
commanders for a joint effort against local discrimination through
voluntary compliance, the demands of the civil rights organizations
petered out.[22-3]

[Footnote 22-2: See Ltr, J. Francis Pohlhous, Counsel,
Washington Bureau, NAACP, to SecDef, 5 Aug 63, ASD
(M) 291.2; Telg, NAACP Commanders to SecDef, DA IN
886952, ASD (M) 334 Equal Opportunity in Armed
Forces (21 Jul 63); Ltr, Juanita Mitchell,
President, Baltimore Branch, NAACP, to SecDef, 11
May 64, copy in CMH. Sec also New York _Times_,
July 23, 1963.]

[Footnote 22-3: See Ltrs, DASD (CR) to J. Francis
Pohlhous, 15 Aug and 6 Sep 63; Albert Fritz, Utah
Branch, NAACP, 29 Aug 63; and Juanita Mitchell, 18
Mar 64. See also Ltr, DASD (Civ Pers, Industrial
Relations, and Civil Rights) to Moses Newsom,
_Afro-American Newspapers_, 2 Feb 65. Copies of all
in CMH.]

According to a 1964 survey of black servicemen and veterans, this
group enjoyed military life more than whites and were more favorably
disposed toward the equal opportunity efforts of the Department of
Defense.[22-4] They continued to complain, but th