Committee's report. Even the innocuous suggestion that officers be
appointed to channel black servicemen's complaints was met with
charges of "snooping" and "gestapo" tactics.[22-38]

[Footnote 22-38: Fitt, "Remarks Before Civilian Aides
Conference of the Secretary of the Army," 6 Mar
64.]

Although both the Gesell Committee and Secretary McNamara had made
clear that careful direction was necessary, the manpower office of the
Department of Defense temporized. Instead of issuing detailed
guidelines to the services that outlined their responsibilities for
enforcing the provision of the secretary's equal opportunity
directive, instead of demanding a strict accounting from commanders of
their execution of these responsibilities, Paul asked the services for
outline plans and then indiscriminately approved these plans even when
they passed over real accountability in favor of vaguely stated
principles. The result was a lengthy period of bureaucratic confusion.
Protected by the lack of specific instructions the services went
through an Alfonse-Gaston routine, each politely refraining from
commitment to substantial measures while waiting to see how far the
others would go.[22-39]

[Footnote 22-39: Interv, author with Evans, 23 Jul 73,
CMH files.]

_Fighting Discrimination Within the Services_

The immediate test for the services' belatedly organized civil rights
apparatus was the racial discrimination lingering within the armed
forces themselves. The Civil Rights Commission and the Gesell
Committee had been concerned with the exceptions to the services'
generally satisfactory equal opportunity record. It was these
exceptions, such chronic problems as underrepresentation of Negroes in
some services, in the higher military grades, and in skilled military
occupations, that continued to concern the Defense Department civil
rights organization and the services as they tried to carry out
McNamara's directive. Seemingly minor compared to the discrimination
faced by black servicemen outside the military reservation, racial
problems within the military family and how the services dealt with
them would have direct bearing on the tranquility of the armed forces
in the 1970's.

[Illustration: LISTENING TO THE SQUAD LEADER. _Men of Company D, 21st
Infantry, prepare to move out, Quang Tin Province, Vietnam._]

Two pressing needs, and o