firmly and steadily from one to the other.

[Footnote 6-11: Memo, Civilian Aide for ASW, 13 Nov
45, ASW 291.2 Negro Troops (Post War); Ltr, idem to
SW, 13 Nov 45; Memo, McCloy for Patterson, 24 Nov
45; Memo, Gibson for SW, 28 Nov 45. Last three in
SW 291.2. The Gibson quote is from the 28 November
memo.]

On some fundamental issues McCloy thought the board did "not speak
with the complete clarity necessary," but he considered the ambiguity
unintentional. Experience showed, he reminded the secretary, "that we
cannot get enforcement of policies that permit of any possibility of
misconstruction." Directness, he said, was required in place of
equivocation based on delicacy. If the Gillem Board intended black
officers to command white officers and men, it should have said so
flatly. If it meant the Army should try unsegregated and mixed units,
it should have said so. Its report, McCloy concluded, should have put
these matters beyond doubt. He was equally forthright in his rejection
of the quota, which he found impractical because it deprived the Army
of many qualified Negroes who would be unable to enlist when the quota
was full. Even if the quota was meant as a floor rather than a
ceiling, McCloy thought it objectionable. "I do not see any place," he
wrote, "for a quota in a policy that looks to utilize Negroes on the
basis of ability."

If the Gillem Board revealed the Army's willingness to compromise in
treating a pressing efficiency problem, detailed comments by
interested staff agencies revealed how military traditionalists hoped
to avoid a pressing social problem. For just as McCloy and Gibson
criticized the board for failing to spell out concrete procedures
toward integration, other staff experts generally approved the board's
report precisely because its ambiguities committed them to very
little. Their specific criticisms, some betraying the biases of the
times, formed the basis of the standard traditionalist defense of the
racial _status quo_ for the next five years.

Comments from the staff's personnel organization set the tone of this
criticism.[6-12] The Assistant Chief of Staff for Personnel, G-1, Maj.
Gen. Willard S. Paul, approved the board's recommendations, calling
them a "logical solution to the problem of effective utilization of
Negro manpower." Although he thought the report "sufficientl