Since World War II, for example, educational psychologists have
learned that ethnic, cultural, and linguistic backgrounds have an
important influence on performance in general testing. Davenport, who
eventually became a senior manpower official in the Department of
Defense has, for one, concluded that the test scores created a
distorted picture of the mental ability of the black soldier. He has
also questioned the fairness of the Army testing system, charging that
uniform time periods were not always provided for black and white
recruits taking the tests and that this injustice was only one of
several inequalities of test administration that might have
contributed to the substantial differences in the scores of
applicants.[7-103]

[Footnote 7-103: Ltr, Roy K. Davenport to author, 11
Dec 71, CMH files. Davenport became Deputy Under
Secretary of the Army and later Deputy Assistant
Secretary of Defense (Manpower Planning and
Research) in the Johnson administration.]

The accuracy of test scores can be ignored when the subject is viewed
from the perspective of manpower utilization. In the five years after
World War II, the actual number of white soldiers who scored in the
lowest test categories equaled or exceeded the number of black
soldiers. The Army had no particular difficulty using these white
soldiers to advantage, and in fact refused to discharge all Class V
men in 1946. Segregation was the heart of the matter; the less gifted
whites could be scattered throughout the Army but the less gifted
blacks were concentrated in the segregated black units.

Reversing the coin, what could the Army do with the highly qualified
black soldier? His technical skills were unneeded in the limited
number and variety of black units; he was barred from white units. In
an attempt to deal with this problem, the Gillem policy directed that
Negroes with special skills or qualifications be employed in overhead
detachments. Such employment, however, depended in great part on the
willingness of commanders to use school-trained Negroes. Many of these
officers complained that taking the best qualified Negroes out of
black units for assignment to overhead detachments deprived black
units of their leaders. Furthermore, overhead units represented so
small a part of the whole that they had little effect on the Army's
problem.

The racial quota also c