-49] The administration,
however, continued to take the view that integration of the National
Guard was a special problem because the leverage available to
implement it was in no way comparable to the federal government's
control over the active forces or the organized reserves.

[Footnote 23-48: Ltrs, Chief, NGB, to AG's of Alabama
et al., 3 Mar 62, 3 Jul 63, and 9 Dec 63; see also
Williams Board Rpt, II: 36.]

[Footnote 23-49: Ltr, Maj Gen Raymond H. Fleming,
Adjutant General, Louisiana National Guard, to
Chief, NGB, 16 Jul 63, copy in CMH.]

Progress toward total integration continued through 1963 and 1964,
although slowly.[23-50] Near the end of 1964, the National Guard
Bureau announced that every state National Guard was integrated,
though only in token numbers in some cases.[23-51] Even this slight
victory could not be claimed by the Department of Defense or its
National Guard Bureau, but was the result of the pressure exerted on
states by the Gesell Committee.

[Footnote 23-50: See Memos: Chief, NGB, for Gen
Counsel, DA, 22 Oct 63, sub: Current Status of
Integration of National Guard in Ten Southern
States; idem for DASD (CR), 30 Dec 63, sub:
Year-End Report on Integration of Negroes in the
National Guard; idem for Dep Under SA (Manpower and
Res Forces), 9 Jan 64, sub: Meeting With National
Chairman of the American Veterans Committee. Copies
of all in CMH.]

[Footnote 23-51: "Statement by Maj. Gen. Winston C.
Wilson, Chief, National Guard Bureau Concerning
Integration of the National Guard," 28 Dec 64, copy
in CMH; see also New York _Times_, December 30,
1964, and Williams Board Rpt, II:38.]

The Civil Rights Act of 1964 altered the Defense Department's attitude
toward the National Guard. Title VI of the act undercut all arguments
against federal supremacy over the guard, for it no longer mattered
who had technical responsibility for units in peacetime. In practical
terms, the power to integrate clearly rested now with the federal
government, which in a complete reversal of its earlier policy showed
a disposition to use it. On 15 Feb