Some of the members had definite ideas on how the committee should operate. Warning of a new mood in the black community where "impatience and expectations" were far different from what they were at the time of the Fahy Committee, Whitney Young wanted the committee to prepare a frank and honest report free of the "taint of whitewash." To that end he wanted the group's directive interpreted in its broadest sense as leading to a wide-ranging examination of off-base housing, recreation, and educational opportunity, among other subjects. He wanted an investigation at the grass roots level, and he offered specific suggestions about the size and duties of the staff to achieve this. Young also recommended commissioning "additional citizen teams" to assist in some of the numerous and necessary field trips and wanted the committee to use Congressman Diggs and his files.[21-20]
Benjamin Muse, on the other hand, considered direct, personal investigation of specific grievances too time-consuming. He wanted the group to concentrate instead on the command level, holding formal conferences with key staff officials. The best way to impress upon the services that the White House was serious, he told Gesell, was to learn the opinions of these officials and to elicit, "subject to our private analysis and discount," a great deal of helpful information.[21-21]
Chairman Gesell compromised. He wanted the group to develop some broad recommendations on the basis of a limited examination of specific complaints. President Kennedy agreed. He told Gesell: "don't go overboard and try to visit every base, but unless you see at least some bases you will never understand the situation."[21-22] White House assistant Lee C. White suggested that while the committee had no deadline it should be advised that a report would be needed in June if any legislative proposals were to be submitted to Congress. At the same time he wanted the White House to make clear that the members, "and particularly the Negro members," would be left free to act as they chose.[21-23]
In the end the committee's operations owed something to all these suggestions. The group worked out of a small office near the White House and pointedly distant from the Pentagon. Its formal meetings were rare—only seven in all—and were used primarily to hear the presentations of service officials and consider the committee's findings. At a meeting in November 1962, for instance, Gesell arranged for five Air Force base commanders to discuss the application of the equal opportunity policy in their commands and in neighboring communities and describe their own duties as they saw them.[21-24]
The chairman explained that the infrequent meetings were used mostly for "needling people and asking for statistics." Some black members at first opposed asking the services for statistical data on the grounds that such requests would reinforce the tendency to identify servicemen by race, thus encouraging racial assignments and, ultimately, racial quotas. The majority, however, was convinced of the need for statistical material, and in the end the requests for such information enjoyed the committee's unanimous support.[21-25]
Most of the committee's work was done in a "shirt sleeve" atmosphere, as its chairman described it, with a staff of four people.[21-26] Members, alone and in groups, studied the mountains of racial statistics, some prepared by the staff of the Civil Rights Commission, and the lengthy answers to committee questionnaires prepared by the services. The services also arranged for on-site inspections by committee members.[21-27] The field trips proved to be of paramount importance, not only in ascertaining the conditions of black servicemen and their dependents but also in fixing the extent of the local commander's responsibility for race relations. Operating usually in two-man biracial teams, the committee members would separate to interview the commander, local businessmen, and the men themselves. The firsthand information thus gathered had a profound influence on the committee's thinking, an influence readily discernible in its recommendations to the President.
The committee concluded from its investigations that serious discrimination against black servicemen and their families existed at home and abroad within the services and in the civilian community, and that this discrimination affected black morale and military efficiency. Regarding evidence of discrimination within the services, the committee isolated a series of problems existing "both service-wide and at particular bases."[21-28] Specifically, the group was not convinced by official reasons for the disproportionately small number of Negroes in some services, especially among the noncommissioned officers and in the officer corps. Chairman Gesell called the dearth of black officers a "shocking condition."[21-29] His group was particularly concerned with the absence of black officers on promotion boards and the possibility of unfairness in the promotion process where photos and racial and religious information were included in the selection files made available to these boards. It also noted the failure of the services to increase the number of black ROTC graduates. The committee considered and rejected the idea of providing preferential treatment for Negroes to achieve better representation in the services and in the higher grades.[21-30]
Overrepresentation of black enlisted men in certain supply and food services was obvious.[21-31] Here the committee was particularly critical of the Navy and the Marine Corps. On another score, the Chief of Naval Personnel noted that the committee "considers the Navy and Marines far behind the Army and Air Force, particularly in the area of community relations," a criticism, he admitted, "to some extent" justified.[21-32] So apparent was the justification that, at the suggestion of the Secretary of the Navy, Gesell discussed with Under Secretary Paul B. Fay, Jr., ways to better the Navy's record in its "areas of least progress."[21-33] Gesell later concluded that the close social contact necessary aboard ship had been a factor in the Navy's slower progress.[21-34] Whatever the reason, the Navy and Marine Corps fell statistically short of the other services in every category measured by the Gesell group.
The "sex thing," as Gesell referred to the interracial problems arising from off-duty social activities, also proved to be important, especially for noncommissioned officer and service clubs and base-sponsored activities in the community. The committee itself had persuaded the National United Services Organization to integrate its facilities, and it wanted local commanders to follow up by inviting black civilians to participate in USO dances and entertainments.[21-35] The committee also discussed discrimination in military police assignments, segregation in local transport and on school buses, and the commander's attitude toward interracial associations both on and off the military reservation.
Despite its criticism of the imperfect application of service race policies—some service-wide, others confined to certain bases—the committee reported to the President that the services had made "an intelligent and far-reaching advance toward complete integration, and, with some variations from service to service, substantial progress toward equality of treatment and opportunity."[21-36] Gesell called the services the nation's "pace setter," and he was convinced that they had not received sufficient credit for their racial achievements, which were "way ahead of General Motors and the other great corporations."[21-37] That the services were more advanced than other segments of American society in terms of equal treatment and opportunity was beyond dispute; nevertheless, serious problems connected with racial prejudice and the armed forces' failure to understand the fundamental needs of black servicemen remained. The committee's investigation, with its emphasis on off-base realities and its dependence on statistics and other empirical data, did not lend itself to more than a superficial treatment of these subtle and stubborn, if unmeasurable, on-base problems.