npower and
Reserve Forces, for SecAF, 4 Mar 63, sub:
Anti-Discrimination Policies; see also Memo, Asst
Vice CofS, USAF, for SecAF, 26 Feb 63, same sub,
687-63; both in SecAF files.]

[Footnote 22-28: Memo, SecAF for ASD (M), 10 Jul 63,
sub: Air Force Response to the Gesell Committee
Report, ASD (M) 291.2.]

Paul ignored the critical differences in the services' outline plans
when he approved all three without distinction on 13 September.[29]
Alfred Fitt later explained why the Department had not insisted (p. 564)
the services adopt the committee's specific recommendations
on command responsibility. Commenting on the committee's call for the
appointment of a special officer at each base to transmit black
servicemen's grievances to base commanders, Fitt acknowledged that
most Negroes were reluctant to complain, but said the services were
aware of this reluctance and had already devised means to overcome it.
Problems in communication, he pointed out, were leadership problems,
and commanders must be left free to find their own method of learning
about conditions in their commands. As for the committee's suggestion
that equal opportunity initiatives in the local community be made a
consideration in the promotion of the commander, the Defense
Department had temporized. Such initiatives, Fitt explained, might be
considered part of the commander's total performance, but it should
never be the governing factor in determining advancement.[30]

[Footnote 22-29: Memo, ASD (M) for Under SA et al., 13
Sep 63, sub: DOD Directive 5120.36, 26 Jul 63,
Equal Opportunity, ASD (M) 291.2.]

[Footnote 22-30: Alfred B. Fitt, Deputy Assistant
Secretary of Defense (Civil Rights), "Remarks
Before Civilian Aides Conference of the Secretary
of the Army," 6 Mar 64, copy in CMH.]

Yet the principle of command responsibility was not completely
ignored, for Paul made his approval of the plans contingent on several
additional service actions. Each service had to prepare for commanders
an instruction manual dealing with the discharge of their equal
opportunity responsibilities, develop an equal opportunity information
program for the periodic orientation of all personnel, and institute