ns for housing and on
the current civil rights legislation. He recommended that the
Department of Defense complete and disseminate to local commanders
information packets containing relevant directives, statistics, and
legal procedures available in the local housing field.[23-71]

[Footnote 23-71: Memo, ASD (M) for SecDef, 2 Nov 63,
sub: Family Housing for Negro Servicemen, ASD (M)
291-2.]

McNamara approved this procedure, again investing local commanders
with responsibility for combating a pervasive form of discrimination
with a voluntary compliance program. Specifically, local commanders
were directed to promote open housing near their bases, expanding
their open housing lists and pressing the problem of local housing (p. 601)
discrimination on their biracial community committees for solution.
They were helped by the secretary's assistants. His civil rights and
housing deputies became active participants in the President's housing
committee, transmitting to local military commanders the information
and techniques developed in the executive body. McNamara's civil
rights staff inaugurated cooperative programs with state and municipal
equal opportunity commissions and other local open housing bodies,
making these community resources available to local commanders.
Finally, in February 1965, the Department of Defense entered into a
formal arrangement with the Federal Housing Administration to provide
commanders with lists of all housing in their area covered by the
President's housing order and to arrange for the lease of foreclosed
Federal Housing Authority properties to military personnel.[23-72]

[Footnote 23-72: Ltr, DASD (CR) to Chmn, President's
Cmte on Equal Opportunity in Housing, 19 Sep 63,
copy in CMH; see also Paul Memo.]

These activities had little effect on the military housing situation.
An occasional apartment complex or trailer court got integrated, but
no substantial progress could be reported in the four years following
Secretary McNamara's 1963 equal opportunity directive. On the
contrary, the record suggests that many commanders, discouraged
perhaps by the overwhelming difficulties encountered in the fair
housing field, might agree with Fitt: "I have no doubt that I did
nothing about it [housing discrimination] in 1963-4 because I was
working on forms of discrimination at once more bla