discrimination was a manpower problem, and the number of assistant
secretaries was fixed by law and the chance of congressional approval
for yet another manpower position was remote.[22-16]

[Footnote 22-15: This solution was still being
recommended a decade later; see Department of
Defense, "Report of the Task Force on the
Administration of Military Justice in the Armed
Forces," 30 Nov 72, vol. I, pp. 51, 112. See also
Interv, author with L. Howard Bennett (former DASD
[CR]), 13 Dec 73, CMH files.]

[Footnote 22-16: Interv, author with Col George R. H.
Johnson, Deputy, Plans and Policy, DASD (Equal
Opportunity), 9 Aug 73, CMH files.]

These organizational problems had yet to appear in July 1963 when at
Yarmolinsky's suggestion Secretary McNamara appointed Alfred B. Fitt
the first civil rights deputy. Since 1961 the Army's Deputy Under
Secretary for Manpower, Fitt had recently been on loan to the Office
of the Secretary of Defense to coordinate the department's responses
to the Gesell Committee. He was the author of the equal opportunity
directive signed by McNamara, and his personal views on the subject,
while consistent with those of Yarmolinsky and McNamara, were often
expressed in more advanced terms. Going beyond the usual arguments for
equal treatment based on morale and military efficiency, Fitt (p. 560)
referred to the black servicemen's struggle as a moral issue. He was
glad, he later confessed, to be on the right side of such an issue,
and he felt indebted to the positive racial policies of Kennedy and
Johnson and their Secretary of Defense.[22-17] He quickly gathered
around him a staff of like-minded experts who proceeded to their first
task, a review of the services' outline plans called for in the
secretary's directive.[22-18]

[Footnote 22-17: Ltr, DASD (CR) to Gesell, 28 Jul 64,
Gesell Collection, J. F. Kennedy Library.]

[Footnote 22-18: Interv, author with Jordan, 7 Jun
72.]

[Illustration: ARRIVING IN VIETNAM. _101st Airborne Division troops
aboard the USNS General Le Roy Eltinge._]

Although merely outlines of proposed service programs, the three plans
submitted in July and August nevertheless reflected the emphasis on
off-bas