-92: WD Cir 118, 9 May 47.]

General Paul wanted to take advantage of this unusually fluid
situation. He could point out that black soldiers must be included in
the new program, but how was he to fit them in? Black units lacked the
diverse jobs open to whites, and as a result Negroes were clustered in
a relatively small number of military specialties with few career
fields open to them. Moreover, some 111 of the Army's 124 listed
school courses required an Army General Classification Test score (p. 199)
of ninety for admission, and the Personnel and Administration Division
discovered that 72 percent of Negroes enlisted between April 1946 and
March 1947 as compared to 29 percent of whites scored below that
minimum. Excluded from schools, these men would find it difficult to
move up the career ladders.[7-93]

[Footnote 7-93: P&A Memo for Rcd, attached to DF,
D/P&A to TAG, 11 Jun 47, sub: Utilization of Negro
Manpower in the Postwar Army in Connection With
Enlisted Career Guidance Program, WDGPA 291.2 (11
Jun 47).]

Concerned that the new career program would discriminate against black
soldiers, Paul could not, however, agree with the solution suggested
by Roy K. Davenport, an Army manpower expert. On the basis of a
detailed study that he and a representative of the Personnel and
Administration Division conducted on Negroes in the career program,
Davenport concluded that despite significant improvement in the
quality of black recruits in recent months more than half the black
enlisted men would still fail to qualify for the schooling demanded in
the new program. He wanted the Army to consider dropping the test
score requirement for school admission and substituting a "composite
of variables," including length of service in a military occupation
and special performance ratings. Such a system, he pointed out, would
insure the most capable in terms of performance would be given
opportunities for schooling and would eliminate the racial
differential in career opportunity. It was equally important,
Davenport thought, to broaden arbitrarily the list of occupational
specialties, open all school courses to Negroes, and increase the
black quotas for courses already open to them.[7-94]

[Footnote 7-94: Davenport, "Matters Relating to the
Participation of Negro Personnel in the Career