Military Policy," _Harper's_ 192 (May
1946):403-13.]

Given the composition of the Gillem Board and the climate of opinion
in the nation, the report was exemplary and fair, its conclusions
progressive. If in the light of later developments the recommendations
seem timid, even superficial, it should be remembered to its credit
that the board at least made integration a long-range goal of the Army
and made permanent the wartime guarantee of a substantial black
representation.

Nevertheless the ambiguities in the Gillem Board's recommendations
would be useful to those commanders at all levels of the Army who were
devoted to the racial _status quo_. Gillem and his colleagues (p. 165)
discussed black soldiers in terms of social problems rather than
military efficiency. As a result, their recommendations treated the
problem from the standpoint of how best Negroes could be employed
within the traditional segregated framework even while they spoke of
integration as an ultimate goal. They gave their blessing to the
continued existence of segregated units and failed to inquire whether
segregation might not be a factor in the inefficiency and
ineffectiveness of black units and black soldiers. True, they sought
to use qualified Negroes in specialist jobs as a solution to better
employment of black manpower, but this effort could have little
practical effect. Few were qualified--and determination of
qualifications was often done by those with little sympathy for the
Negro and even less for the educated Negro. Black serviceman holding
critical specialties and those assigned to overhead installations
would never amount to more than a handful of men whose integration
during duty hours only would fall far short even of tokenism.

To point out as the board did that the policy it was recommending no
longer required segregation was meaningless. Until the Army ordered
integration, segregation, simply by virtue of inertia, would remain.
As McCloy, along with Gibson and others, warned, without a strong,
explicit statement of intent by the Army the changes in Army practice
suggested by the Gillem Board would be insignificant. The very
acceptance of the board's report by officials traditionally opposed to
integration should have been fair warning that the report would be
difficult to use as a base for a progressive racial policy; in fact it
could be used to justify almost any course of action. Fro