1.17 million
rental units, 93 percent of all those identified in the 1967 survey,
were open to all servicemen.[23-98] Still, these impressive gains did
not signal the end of housing discrimination for black servicemen. The
various Defense Department sanctions excluded dwellings for four
families or less, and the evidence suggests that the original and
hastily compiled off-base census on which all the open housing gains
were measured had ignored some particularly intransigent landlords in
larger apartment houses and operators of trailer courts on the grounds
that their continued refusal to negotiate with commanders had made (p. 607)
the likelihood of integrating their properties extremely remote.

[Footnote 23-96: SecDef News Conference, 29 Jun 68,
transcript in CMH.]

[Footnote 23-97: McNamara, _The Essence of Security_,
p. 127.]

[Footnote 23-98: Bahr, "_The Expanding Role of the
Department of Defense_," p. 123.]

The campaign for open housing is the most noteworthy chapter in the
fight for equality of treatment and opportunity for servicemen. The
efforts of the Department of Defense against other forms of off-base
discrimination were to a great extent successful because they
coincided with court rulings and powerful civil rights legislation.
The campaign for open housing, on the other hand, was launched in
advance of court and congressional action and in the face of much
popular feeling against integrated housing. McNamara's fight for open
housing demonstrates, as nothing had before, his determination to use,
if necessary, the department's economic powers in the civilian
community to secure equal treatment and opportunity for servicemen. In
the name of fair housing, McNamara invested not only his own prestige
but also the Defense Department's manpower and financial resources. In
effect, this willingness to use the extreme weapon of off-limits
sanctions revitalized the idea of using the Department of Defense as
an instrument of social change in American society.

McNamara's willingness to push the department beyond the national
consensus on civil rights (as represented by the contemporary civil
rights laws) also signified a change in his attitude. Unlike
Yarmolinsky and Robert Kennedy, McNamara limited his attention to
discrimination's effect on the individual serviceman and, ultimately,
on the milit