[Footnote 5-48: Ltr, OCSigO (Col David E. Washburn,
Exec Off) to WDSSP, 31 Jul 45, sub: Participation
of Negro Troops in the Postwar Military
Establishment, WDSSP 291.2 (1945).]

[Footnote 5-49: Ltr, Maj Gen James L. Collins, CG,
Fifth Service Cmd, to CG, ASF, 24 Jul 45, sub:
Participation of Negro Troops in the Postwar
Military Establishment, WDSSP 291.2.]

[Footnote 5-50: Memo, CG, First Service Cmd, for CG,
ASF, 23 Jul 45, sub: Participation of Negro Troops
in the Postwar Military Establishment, WDSSP 291.2
(1945).]

Truman Gibson took much the same approach when he summed up for McCloy
his estimate of the situation facing the Army. After rehearsing the
recent history of segregation in the armed forces, he suggested that
it was not enough to compare the performance of black and white
troops; the reports of black performance should be examined to
determine whether the performance would be improved or impaired by
changing the policy of segregation. Any major Army review, he urged,
should avoid the failure of the old studies on race that based (p. 142)
differences in performance on racial characteristics and should
question instead the efficiency of segregation. For him, segregation
was the heart of the matter, and he counseled that "future policy
should be predicated on an assumption that civilian attitudes will not
remain static. The basic policy of the Army should, therefore, not
itself be static and restrictive, but should be so framed as to make
further progress possible on a flexible basis."[5-51]

[Footnote 5-51: Memo, Truman Gibson for ASW, 8 Aug
45, ASW 291.2.]

Before passing Gibson's suggestions to the Assistant Secretary of War,
McCloy's executive assistant, Lt. Col. Davidson Sommers, added some
ideas of his own. Since it was "pretty well recognized," he wrote,
that the Army had not found the answer to the efficient use of black
manpower, a first-class officer or group of officers of high rank,
supplemented perhaps with a racially mixed group of civilians, should
be designated to prepare a new racial policy. But, he warned, their
work would be ineffectual without specific directions from Army
leaders. He wanted the Army to make "eventual