voiding controversy with civilian authorities--they cannot
effectively sue for the constitutional rights of their sons and
daughters. Yet they see their children, fresh from the integrated
environment which is the rule on military installations,
condemned to schools which are frequently two, even three grades
behind the integrated schools these same children had attended
on-base or at their fathers' previous duty stations.[23-54]

[Footnote 23-54: Memo, DASD (CR) for Burke Marshall,
20 Mar 64, sub: The Civil Rights of Negro
Servicemen, copy in CMH.]

There was much to be said for the Defense Department's theory that an
appeal for voluntary compliance would produce much integration in
off-base schools attended by military dependents. That these children
were the offspring of men serving in defense of their country was
likely to have considerable impact in the south, especially, with its
strong military traditions. That the children had in most cases
already attended integrated schools, competing and learning with
children of another race, was likely to make their integration more
acceptable to educators.

Beyond these special reasons, the services could expect help from new
legislation and new administration rulings. The Civil Rights Act of
1960, for example, had authorized the Department of Health, Education,
and Welfare to provide integrated education for military dependents in
areas where public schools were discontinued. In March 1962 Secretary
of Health, Education, and Welfare Abraham Ribicoff announced that
racially segregated schools were no longer "suitable" institutions
under the terms of Public Laws 815 and 879 and that beginning in
September 1963 his department would "exercise sound discretion, take
appropriate steps" to provide integrated education for military
dependents. If the children were withdrawn from local school systems
to achieve this, he warned, so too the federal aid.[23-55] Lending
credence to Ribicoff's warning, his department undertook a survey in
the fall of 1962 of selected military installations to determine the
educational status of military dependents.[23-56] On 17 September 1962
Attorney General Kennedy filed suit in Richmond to bar the use of
federal funds in the segregated schools of Prince George County,
Virginia, the location of Fort Lee.[23-57] Finally, in January 1963,
the Department of Health,