ion to a
realization that black commissioned officers were needed.

Despite its 100,000 enlisted Negroes, the absence of black
commissioned officers in the fall of 1943 forced the Navy to answer an
increasing number of queries from civil rights organizations and
Congress.[3-69] Several times during 1942 suggestions were made within
the Bureau of Naval Personnel that the instructors at the Hampton
specialist school and seventy-five other Negroes be commissioned (p. 080)
for service with the large black units, but nothing happened.
Secretary Knox himself thought that the Navy would have to develop a
considerable body of black sailors before it could even think about
commissioning black officers.[3-70] But the secretary failed to
appreciate the effect of the sheer number of black draftees that
overwhelmed the service in the spring of 1943, and he reckoned without
the persuasive arguments of his special assistant, Adlai
Stevenson.[3-71]

[Footnote 3-69: News that the Navy had inadvertently
commissioned a black student at Harvard University
in the spring of 1942 produced the following
reaction in one personnel office: "LtCmdr B ...
[Special Activities Branch, BuPers] says this is
true due to a slip by the officer who signed up
medical students at Harvard. Cmdr. B. says this boy
has a year to go in medical school and hopes they
can get rid of him some how by then. He earnestly
asks us to be judicious in handling this matter and
prefers that nothing be said about it." Quoted in a
Note, H. M. Harvey to M Mc (ca. 20 Jun 42), copy on
file in the Dennis D. Nelson Collection, San Diego,
California.]

[Footnote 3-70: Ltr, SecNav to Sen. David I. Walsh
(Massachusetts), 21 May 42, 51-1-26; see also idem
to Sen. William H. Smathers (Florida), 7 Feb 42,
Nav-32-C. Both in GenRecsNav.]

[Footnote 3-71: Interv, Lee Nichols with Lester
Granger, 1953, in Nichols Collection, CMH.]

Secretary Knox often referred to Adlai Stevenson as "my New Dealer,"
and, as the expression suggested, the Illinois lawyer was in an
excellent position to influence the secretary's th