ument for
removing racial designations, for the civil rights experts both within
and outside the department demanded more detailed racial statistics to
protect and enlarge the equal opportunity gains of the sixties. The
demand was also supported by representatives of the smaller racial
minorities who, joining in the civil rights revolution, developed a
self-awareness that made detailed racial and ethnic statistics
mandatory. The shift was made possible to a great extent by the change
in public opinion toward racial minorities. As one civil rights
official later noted, the change in attitude had caused black
servicemen to reconsider their belief that detrimental treatment
necessarily followed racial identification.[22-67] Ironically, just a
decade after the McNamara directive on equal opportunity, a
departmental civil rights official, himself a Negro, was defending the
use of photographs in the selection process on the grounds that such
procedures were necessary in any large organization where individuals
were relatively unknown to their superiors.[22-68] So strong had the
services' need for black officers become, it could be argued, that a
promotion board's knowledge of a candidate's race redounded to the
advantage of the black applicants. For whatever reason, the pressure
to eliminate racial indicators from personnel forms had largely
disappeared at the end of the 1960's.

[Footnote 22-67: Memo, Bennett for ASD (M) and DASD
(Civ Pers, Indus Rels, and CR), 8 Dec 66, copy in
CMH.]

[Footnote 22-68: Interv, author with Johnson, 9 Aug
73.]

The Gesell Committee's investigations also forced the Department of
Defense to consider the possibility of discrimination in the rarefied
area of embassy and special mission assignments and the certainty of
discrimination against black servicemen in local communities near some
overseas bases. Concerning the former, the staff of the civil rights
deputy concluded that such assignments were voluntary and based on
special selection procedures. Race was not a factor except for three
countries where assignments were "based on politically ethnic
considerations."[22-69] Nevertheless, Fitt began to discuss with
the services ways to attract more qualified black volunteers for (p. 578)
assignments to attache, mission, and military assistance groups.

[Footnote 22-69: Memo, Exec