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Committee, my only qualifications for representing the American Civil Liberties Union are that from a background of three generations of naval officers and many relatives in the Army and Navy in both wars, I can fairly claim to know the military mind, and that during the recent war I made a study of Negroes in the armed forces. To gather material for that book I was accredited by the War and Navy Departments to visit twenty-three posts and stations of all branches of the services and was kindly allowed to stay as long as I pleased to study all phases of Negro-white relations there.

In my view the carrying out of the President's directive for equality of opportunity and treatment can be accomplished only by ending all segregation. In the armed forces there is usually, but not always, equality in housing, food, and clothing, but with segregation there is almost never equality in types of service nor in promotions. Everything I saw in my investigation showed me that with segregation equality of opportunity is impossible.

In accomplishing integration very little trouble would be met at the level of basic training of enlisted personnel and in officers' training schools (should such again be necessary) or at West Point and Annapolis where, with their increasing participation in political life, more Negroes will be appointed. I do not meant that integration at these levels will suddenly do