came the
ultimate justification for integrating the units of the armed forces
and providing for equal treatment of its members in the community.

Beyond the demands of the law and military efficiency, the integration
of the armed forces was also influenced by certain individuals within
the military establishment who personified America's awakening
social conscience. They led the services along the road toward (p. 614)
integration not because the law demanded it, nor because activists
clamored for it, nor even because military efficiency required it, but
because they believed it was right. Complementing the work of these
men and women was the opinion of the American serviceman himself.
Between 1940 and 1965 his attitude toward change was constantly
discussed and predicted but only rarely solicited by senior officials.
Actually his opinion at that time is still largely unknown;
documentary evidence is scarce, and his recollections, influenced as
they are by the intervening years of the civil rights movement, are
unreliable. Yet it was clearly the serviceman's generally quiet
acceptance of new social practices, particularly those of the early
1950's, that ratified the services' racial reforms. As a perceptive
critic of the nation's racial history described conditions in the
services in 1962:

There was a rising tide of tolerance around the nation at that
time. I was thrilled to see it working in the services. Whether
officers were working for it or not it existed. From time to time
you would find an officer imbued with the desire to improve race
relations.... It was a marvel to me, in contrast to my recent
investigations in the South, to see how well integration worked
in the services.[24-4]

[Footnote 24-4: Interv, author with Muse, 2 Mar 73.]

Indeed, it could be argued, American servicemen of the 1950's became a
positive if indirect cause of racial change. By demonstrating that
large numbers of blacks and whites could work and live together, they
destroyed a fundamental argument of the opponents of integration and
made further reforms possible if not imperative.

_How the Services Integrated, 1946-1954_

The interaction of all these factors can be seen when equal treatment
and opportunity in the armed forces is considered in two distinct
phases, the first culminating in the integration of all active
military units in 1954, the second centering around the