n more easily managed hundreds. By limiting (p. 227)
integration to the battalion level (the lowest self-sustaining unit in
the Army system), the Army could guarantee the separation of the races
in eating, sleeping, and general social matters and still hope to
escape some of the obvious discrimination of separate units by making
the black battalions organic elements of larger white units. The
Army's scheme did not work. Schooling and specialty occupations aside,
segregation quite obviously remained the essential fact of military
life and social intercourse for the majority of black soldiers, and
all the evidence of reasonable and genuine reform that came about
under the Gillem Board policy went aglimmering. The Army was in for
some rough years with its critics.

But why were the Army's senior officers, experienced leaders at the
pinnacle of their careers and dedicated to the well-being of the
institution they served, so reluctant to part with segregation? Why
did they cling to an institution abandoned by the Navy and the Air
Force,[8-64] the target of the civil rights movement and its allies in
Congress, and by any reasonable judgment so costly in terms of
efficient organization? The answers lie in the reasoned defense of
their position developed by these men during the long controversy over
the use of black troops and so often presented in public statements
and documents.[8-65] Arguments for continued segregation fell into four
general categories.

[Footnote 8-64: The Air Force became a separate
service on 18 September 1947.]

[Footnote 8-65: Unless otherwise noted, the following
paragraphs are based on Nichols' interviews in 1953
with Generals Eisenhower, Bradley, and Lee and with
Lt. Col. Steve Davis (a black officer assigned to
the P&A Division during the Gillem Board period);
author's interview with General Wade H. Haislip, 18
Mar 71, and with General J. Lawton Collins, 27 Apr
71; all in CMH files; and U.S. Congress, Senate,
Hearings Before the U.S. Senate Committee on _Armed
Services, Universal Military Training_, 80th Cong.,
2d sess., 1948, pp. 995-96. See also Morris
Janowitz, _The Professional Soldier: A Social and
Polit