ruary 1965 Deputy Secretary of
Defense Vance ordered the Army and Air Force to amend National Guard
regulations to eliminate any trace of racial discrimination and "to
ensure that the policy of equal opportunity and treatment is clearly
stated."[23-52] Vance's order produced a speedy change in the states,
so much so that later in 1965 the Department of Defense was finally
able to oppose New York Congressman Abraham J. Multer's biannual bill
to withhold federal aid from segregated guard units on the grounds
that there were no longer any such units.[23-53]

[Footnote 23-52: Memo, Dep SecDef for SA and SecAF, 15
Feb 65, sub: Equality of Opportunity in the
National Guard, SD 291.2; see also Memo, Chief,
NGB, for Chief, Office of Reserve Components, 27
Jan 65. For examples of how Vance's order was
transmitted to the individual states, see Texas Air
National Guard Regulation 35-1, 17 March 1965, and
State of Michigan General Order No. 34, 2 July
1965. In March 1966 the Army and Air Force
published a joint regulation outlining procedures
to assure compliance with Title VI in the Army and
Air National Guard and designating the Chief of the
National Guard Bureau as the responsible official
to implement departmental directives regarding all
federally assisted activities of the National
Guard. See National Guard Regulation 24, 30 Mar
66.]

[Footnote 23-53: Congressman Multer first introduced
such a bill on 13 January 1949 and pressed,
unsuccessfully, for similar measures in each
succeeding Congress; see Williams Board Rpt, II:
47-48.]

Lack of equal opportunity in the National Guard might have been
resented by civil rights groups, but black servicemen themselves
suffered more generally and more deeply from discrimination (p. 596)
visited on their children. Alfred Fitt summarized these feelings in
1964:

The imposition of unconstitutionally segregated schooling on
their children is particularly galling for the Negro servicemen.
As comparative transients--and as military men accustomed to
a