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Racial Liberalism, Affirmative Action, and the Troubled History of the President's Committee on Government Contracts

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  22 August 2017

Timothy M. Thurber
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On August 13, 1953, Dwight Eisenhower signed Executive Order 10479 establishing the President's Committee on Government Contracts (PCGC). Designed to oversee federal agencies' efforts to ensure nondiscrimination in firms with government contracts, the committee could receive complaints of discrimination, conduct educational campaigns, make recommendations to agencies on how to combat discrimination, receive agency enforcement reports, and establish ties with private and public organizations working on equal employment issues. Enforcement powers, including the authority to cancel contracts, would remain with individual agencies. Eisenhower designated Vice President Richard Nixon to head the committee, which consisted of six individuals from agencies awarding the largest contracts and nine representatives from business, labor, and civic groups. A small full-time staff would implement policies set by these members.

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Articles
Information
Journal of Policy History , Volume 18 , Issue 4 , 2006 , pp. 446 - 476
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Copyright © The Pennsylvania State University, University Park, PA. 2006

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References

1. Executive Order Establishing the Government Contract Committee, 13 August 1953, Box 125, James Mitchell Papers, Dwight D. Eisenhower Library (DDEL), Abilene, , Kan, .; Congressional Quarterly, 9 October 1953 Google Scholar ; New York Times, 20 August 1953.Google Scholar Prominent members included Fred Lazarus Jr. of the American Retail Federation, George Meany, head of the American Federation of Labor, Walter Reuther, president of the Congress of Industrial Organizations, and John Roosevelt, son of President Franklin D. Roosevelt. The committee's lone African American member was J. Ernest Wilkins, who would later join the administration as assistant secretary of labor. The federal agencies represented included the Atomic Energy Commission, the General Services Administration, and the Departments of Commerce, Defense, Justice, and Labor.

2. For examples of contemporary criticism, see Cleveland Call-Post, 23 March 1959 Google Scholar ; Pittsburgh Courier, 28 November 1959 Google Scholar ; Pittsburgh Courier, 28 May 1960 Google Scholar ; New York Amsterdam News, 14 May 1960 Google Scholar ; New York Times, 8 October 1960 Google Scholar ; U.S. Commission on Civil Rights, Employment: 1961 United States Commission on Civil Rights Report (Washington, D.C., 1961), 66.Google Scholar Press Secretary James Hagerty boasted to reporters that “it will be a top-notch committee.” Pointing out that the Eisenhower committee had greater powers than a similar body established by Harry Truman in 1951, Hagerty bluntly declared, “We think we can do a better job.” The Eisenhower administration, Nixon told reporters, intended to achieve concrete results in this area “rather than making a great show from a publicity standpoint.” See the New York Times, 14 August 1953 Google Scholar ; New York Times, 16 August 1953 Google Scholar ; New York Times, 20 August 1953.Google Scholar Later criticism includes Burk, Robert, The Eisenhower Administration and Black Civil Rights (Knoxville, Tenn., 1984), 89 Google Scholar ; Gelber, Steven M., Black Men and Businessmen: The Growing Awareness of a Social Responsibility (Port Washington, N.Y., 1974), 103–21Google Scholar ; Norgren, Paul and Hill, Samuel, Toward Fair Employment (New York, 1964), 151–79Google Scholar ; Sewell, Stacy Kinlock, “‘The Best Man for the Job’: Corporate Responsibility and Racial Integration in the Workplace, 1945-1960,” The Historian (Fall 2003): 1125–46Google Scholar ; Marshall, Ray, The Negro and Organised Labor (New York, 1965), 219–26Google Scholar ; Graham, Hugh Davis, The Civil Rights Era: Origins and Development of National Policy, 1960-1972 (New York, 1990), 16–19 Google Scholar.

3. See, for example, Skrentny, John David, The Ironies of Affirmative Action: Politics, Culture, and Justice in America (Chicago, 1996)Google Scholar ; Graham, , The Civil Rights Era Google Scholar ; Gillon, Steven M., “That's Not What We Meant to Do”: Reform and Its Unintended Consequences (New York, 2000)Google Scholar ; Kotlowski, Dean J., Nixon's Civil Rights: Politics, Principle, and Policy (Cambridge, Mass., 2001)Google Scholar ; Hoff, Joan, Nixon Reconsidered (New York, 1994)Google Scholar ; Sugrue, Thomas J., “The Tangled Roots of Affirmative Action,” American Behavioral Scientist 41 (April 1998): 886–97Google Scholar ; Frymer, Paul and Skrentny, John David, “Coalition Building and th e Politics of Electoral Capture During the Nixon Administration: African Americans, Labor, and Latinos,” Studies in American Political Development 12 (Spring 1998): 131–61Google Scholar ; Belz, Herman, Equality Transformed: A Quarter-Century of Affirmative Action (New Brunswick, N.J., 1991)Google Scholar ; Skrentny, John David, The Minority Rights Revolution (Cambridge, Mass., 2002).Google Scholar For studies that have a broader chronological focus, see Moreno, Paul, From Direct Action to Affirmative Action: Fair Employment Law and Policy in America, 1933-1972 (Baton Rouge, 1997)Google Scholar ; Anderson, Terry, The Pursuit of Fairness: A History of Affirmative Action (New York, 2004)Google Scholar , Rubio, Philip F., A History of Affirmative Action, 1619-2000 (Jackson, Miss., 2001)Google Scholar.

4. On racial liberalism, see Guinier, Lani, “From Racial Liberalism to Racial Literacy: Brown v. Board of Education and the Interest-Divergence Dilemma,” Journal of American History 91 (June 2004): 92–118 Google Scholar ; Kellogg, Peter, “Civil Rights Consciousness in the 1940s,” The Historian 42 (November 1979): 18–41 Google Scholar ; Jackson, Walter, Gunnar Myrdal and America's Conscience: Social Engineering and Racial Liberalism, 1938-1987 (Chapel Hill, 1990)Google Scholar ; Southern, David, Gunnar Myrdal and Black-White Relations: The Use and Abuse of an American Dilemma, 1944-1969 (Baton Rouge, 1987)Google Scholar.

5. On the debate over institutional and social movement influence on public policy, see Jacobs, Meg and Zelizer, Julian, “The Democratic Experiment: New Directions in American Political History,” in Jacobs, Meg, Novak, William J., and Zelizer, Julian E., eds., The Democratic Experiment: New Directions in American Political History (Princeton, 2003), 1–15 Google Scholar ; Hattam, Victoria, “The 1964 Civil Rights Act: Narrating the Past, Authorizing the Future,” Studies in American Political Development 18 (Spring 2004): 60–69 Google Scholar ; Skrentny, John D., “Policy Making Is Decision Making: A Response to Hattan,” Studies in American Political Development 18 (Spring 2004): 70–80 Google Scholar ; Skrentny, , The Minority Rights Revolution, 4–6 Google Scholar ; Amenta, Edwin, Bold Relief: Institutional Politics and the Origins of Modern American Social Policy (Princeton, 1998), 18–54 Google Scholar.

6. Commentary, March 1946 ; Moreno, , From Direct Action to Affirmative Action, 55–66 Google Scholar ; Bonfield, Arthur, “The Origin and Development of American Fair Employment Legislation,” Iowa Law Review 22 (June 1967): 1057–67Google Scholar ; Reed, Merl, Seedtime for the Modern Civil Rights Movement: The President's Committee on Fair Employment Practices, 1941-1946 (Baton Rouge, 1991)Google Scholar ; Anderson, , Pursuit of Fairness, 5–48 Google Scholar ; McCoy, Donald and Ruetten, David, Quest and Response: Minority Rights and the Truman Administration (Lawrence, Kan., 1973)Google Scholar ; Hamilton, Dona Cooper and Hamilton, Charles, The Dual Agenda: Race and Social Welfare Policies of Civil Rights Organizations (New York, 1997), 8–71 Google Scholar ; Memo on NonDiscrimination Clause in Government Contracts, n.d., PPS 307.8, Richard Nixon Papers (NP), Richard Nixon Library, Linda, Yorba, Calif, .; New York Times, 17 January 1953 Google Scholar ; Fortune, November 1955 Google Scholar ; Jacob Seidenberg to Thelma Babbitt, 7 June 1954, Box 2, Chronological Files, President's Committee on Government Contracts Papers (PCGCP), Record Group 220, National Archives, College Park, Md. The PCGC, Seidenberg wrote, was the result in part of “pressures and representations being made to the White House that a committee such as ours had been formed during the preceding administration be continued.”

7. Dwight Eisenhower to Richard Nixon, 15 August 1953, Box 28, Ann Whitman File, Administration Series, Dwight D. Eisenhower Papers, DDEL; General Eisenhower's Position on FEPC and Civil Rights, September 1952, Box 14, Republican National Committee Papers, DDEL; Summary of Policy Statements Made by General Eisenhower, n.d., Record Group 4, Series J.I, Box 4, Nelson A. Rockefeller Personal Papers, Rockefeller Archive, Tarrytown, N.Y.; Text of Eisenhower Speech, 17 October 1952, Box 6, Sherman Adams Papers, Dartmouth College, Hanover, , N.H.; Minneapolis Spokesman, 20 June 1952 Google Scholar ; New York Times, 28 August 1952 Google Scholar ; New York Times, 18 October 1952 Google Scholar ; Text of General Eisenhower's Speech in Harlem, 25 October 1952, Box 726, President's Secretary's File, Harry Truman Papers, Harry S. Truman Library, Independence, Mo.; Memorandum to the Board of Directors from Roy Wilkins, 8 September 1952, Series II, Box A248, NAACP Papers, Library of Congress; Lawson, Steven, Black Ballots: Voting Rights in the South, 1944-1969 (New York, 1976), 144 Google Scholar ; Charles Livermore to Jacob Seidenberg, 12 June 1954, Box 2, Chronological Files, PCGCP; Harold Belt to Jacob Seidenberg, 16 July 1955, Jacob Seidenberg to John Minor Wisdom, 27 June 1955, both in Box 3, Chronological Files, PCGCP. On Eisenhower's views that the federal government should balance competing interests in society, see Griffith, Robert, “Dwight D. Eisenhower and th e Corporate Commonwealth,” American Historical Review 87 (February 1982): 87–122.Google Scholar On the idea that the PCGC might forestall FEPC legislation, see also Maxwell Rabb to Orville BuUington, 5 January 1955, Box 2, Correspondence Files, PCGCP. Rabb sought to assure BuUington that the equal-opportunity program would be administered by people “who understand the problem of business.”

8. Pittsburgh Courier, 25 August 1953 Google Scholar ; Afro-American (Baltimore), 22 August 1953 Google Scholar ; Commercial Appeal (Memphis), 14 August 1953 Google Scholar ; Lester Granger to Maxwell Rabb, 4 September 1953, Box 9, General Subject Files, PCGCP; Atlanta Constitution, 25 August 1953 Google Scholar ; Schulman, Bruce, From Cotton Belt to Sunbelt: Federal Policy, Economic Development, the Transformotion of the South, 1938-1980 (New York, 1991), 86-102, 135–42Google Scholar ; Dwight Eisenhower to James Byrnes, 14 August 1953, Box 3, Name Series, Ann Whitman File, Dwight D. Eisenhower Papers, DDEL; James Byrnes to Dwight Eisenhower, 27 August 1953, Box 8, Name Series, Ann Whitman File, Dwight D. Eisenhower Papers. Governor Herman Talmadge of Georgia called the committee “a great mistake,” while Georgia's, attorney general similarly observed, “I hope it's not an effort to rescue the issue of FEPC.” Atlanta Daily World, 22 August 1953 Google Scholar.

9. Minutes o{ Meeting of the Government Contract Committee, 14 September 1953, PPS 307.4.4, NP; Jacob Seidenberg to Fred Lazarus Jr., 22 September 1954, Box 2, Chronological Files, PCGCP; Burk, , The Eisenhower Administration and Black Civil Rights, 97.Google Scholar By 1960, the New York State Commission Against Discrimination had a budget of more than $650,000, while the New York City Commission on Intergroup Relations received $483,215. See Seidenberg, Jacob, “The President's Committee on Government Contracts, 1953-1960: An Appraisal,” n.d., Box 130, Mitchell PapersGoogle Scholar.

10. Charles Livermore to Jacob Seidenberg, 12 June 1954, Box 2, Chronological Files, PCGCP; Draft of Letter, Maxwell Rabb to Orville Billington, 5 January 1955, Box 2, Correspondence File, PCGCP; U.S. News and World Report, 17 December 1954 Google Scholar ; Memo for the Files, 11 May 1954, both in Box 1, Chronological Files, PCGCP; Jacob Seidenberg to James Worthy, 24 June 1954, Jacob Seidenberg to Cloyte Murdock, 19 October 1954, both in Box 2, Chronological Files, PCGCP; Minutes of Meeting of Subcommittee on Review, 24 August 1954, Box 11, Joseph Houchins Files, PCGCP; Business Week, 29 October 1955.Google Scholar The PCGC was not, one committee staff member observed to the labor editor of Fortune, “an assault by a political enemy” of business. Claiming that the Eisenhower administration was “friendly to business,” he added that the nondiscrimination program was “a cogent and persuasive argument by businessmen to fellow businessmen.” See Charles Livermore to Daniel Bell, 20 May 1955, Box 3, Chronological Files, PCGCP; Principles and Program for Compliance, 11 December 1953, Staff Report on Compliance Procedure, n.d., both in Box 30, PCGCP. In April 1954, Seidenberg informed a member of the American Jewish Committee that the PCGC thought it was “not appropriate at this time to seek additional sanctions for the enforcement of the clause.” See Jacob Seidenberg to Edwin Lukas, 28 April 1954, Box 1, Chronological Files, PCGCP.

11. Jacob Seidenberg to Lazarus Jr., 22 September 1954, Box 2, Chronological Files, PCGCP; Government Contracts Committee, “Five Years of Progress,” n.d., PPS 307.123, NP; Government Contracts Committee, “First Report,” n.d., PPS 307.19, NP; Summary of Meeting Between the President's Committee on Government Contracts and Representatives of Industty, 14 December 1954, PPS 307.28, NP; Press Release, 16 October 1955, PPS 307.62, NP; PCGC Newsletter, February 1955, Press Release, 25 October 1955, PCGC Newsletter, December 1955, all in Series 1913, Box 134, Irving Ives Papers, Cornell University, Ithaca, N.Y.; Summary of Conference Between the President's Committee on Government Contracts and Leaders of Organized Labor, 15 March 1955, PPS 307.55, NP; Jacob Seidenberg, “President's Committee on Government Contracts.” An estimated three thousand people attended the nineteen conferences the Committee held during its seven-year existence. Although the committee sincerely wanted to change attitudes, Seidenberg later wrote that many of the meetings were also driven by a desire for good publicity and failed to discuss “substantive problems.” The committee, he pointed out, did not investigate minority employment levels prior to the meetings with business executives, and did not press those leaders for policy changes. Seidenberg described the conference with union leaders as having an “Alice-in-Wonderland” feel.

12. Government Contracts Committee, Third Annual Report, PPS 307.76, NP; New York Times, 23 April 1956 Google Scholar ; PCGC Newsletter, February 1955, Government Contracts Committee, Fourth Annual Report, 19 November 1957, both in Box 5, Joseph Houchins Files, PCGCP; Government Contracts Committee, Five Years of Progress, n.d., PPS 307.123; NP; Government Contracts Committee, Sixth Annual Report, n.d., PPS 307.124, NP ; New York Times, 13 December 1956 Google Scholar ; New York Times, 15 September 1957 Google Scholar ; Report on Equal Job Opportunity Week, n.d., Box 6, Cornelius Ryan Files, PCGCP. The use of postal trucks stirred congressional anger; one southern senator offered a bill to prohibit the use of mail facilities for “propaganda” purposes, while another senator demanded to know if any private social agencies had contributed funds for this effott. None had. See Seidenberg, “President's Committee on Government Contracts.”

13. Seidenberg, , “President's Committee on Government Contracts.”Google Scholar

14. Jacob Seidenberg to Fred Lazarus Jr., 7 October 1953, Fred Lazarus Jr. to Jacob Seidenberg, 9 October 1953, Fred Lazarus Jr. to Charles Thomas, 12 October 1953, William Rogers to Jacob Seidenberg, 19 November 1953, all in Box 30, General Subject Files, PCGC. Housing enforcement in the Labor Department, Rogers also believed, would run afoul of the Russell Amendment. The PCGC lay beyond the reach of the Russell Amendment because it was an interagency committee.

15. Memo on Revising or Amending the Non-Discrimination Clause, 6 January [1954], Revised Memo–The Problem of Revising the Nondiscrimination in Employment Provision, 15 January 1954, both in Box 30, General Subject Files, PCGCP; Memo for the Files, 11 May 1954, Jacob Seidenberg to Thomas Pike, 19 May 1954, both in Box 1, Chronological Files, PCGCP; Memo for the Files, 7 July 1954, Box 2, Chronological Files, PCGCP. Prior to the creation of the PCGC, the State and Treasury departments claimed they lacked expertise and/or resources to devote to compliance and endorsed a centralized enforcement approach. See William Parsons to Jacob Seidenberg, 21 April 1953, James Johnstone to Jacob Seidenberg, 26 May 1953, both in Box 1, Correspondence with Agency Contractors Files, PCGCP.

16. Revising or Amending the Non-Discrimination Clause, 6 January [1954], Revised Memo, , “The Problem of Revising the Nondiscrimination in Employment Provision,” 15 January 1954,Google Scholar T. P. Pike to Jacob Seidenberg, 15 April 1954, all in Box 30, General Subject Files, PCGCP; Memo for the Files, 22 March 1954, Memo for the Files, 11 May 1954, Jacob Seidenberg to Thomas P. Pike, 19 May 1954, all in Box 1, Chronological Files, PCGCP; Jacob Seidenberg to Maxwell Rabb, 2 August 1954, Box 2, Chronological Files, PCGCP; U.S. Commission on Civil Rights, 1961 Report of the U.S. Commission on Civil Rights-Employment, 58 ; Seidenberg, , “President's Committee on Government Contracts.”Google Scholar

17. Revising or Amending the Non-Discrimination Clause, 6 January [1954], Revised memo, “The Problem of Revising the Nondiscrimination in Employment Provision,” 15 January 1954 Google Scholar , both in Box 30, General Subject Files, PCGCP; Jacob Seidenberg to B. M. Hatten, 25 February 1954, Box 1, Chronological Files, PCGCP; Report on Chance-Vough t Case, 16 March 1954, Report on Chance-Vought Complaint, 20 July 1954, both in Box 14, Joseph Houchins Files, PCGCP; Jacob Seidenberg to Fred Lazarus Jr., 22 September 1954, Jacob Seidenberg to Clotye Murdock, 19 Octobe r 1954, Minutes of Meeting of Subcommittee on Review, 10 November 1954, Jacob Seidenberg to Baron Shacklette, 22 December 1954, all in Box 2, Chronological Files, PCGCP; Report on James R. Kearny Corporation, n.d., Report on Pennsylvania Transformer Company, n.d., Report on Rust Engineering Company, n.d., all in Box 8, Joseph Houchins Files, PCGCP. The committee declared that the Navy employed a “narrow, legalistic standard” when its field investigator ruled that there was no discrimination at the Kearny Corporation because African Americans had applied at a time when the company was furloughing workers. Pointing to an Urban League report that the Kearny Corporation had never employed African Americans in its twenty-five-year history, the PCGC recommended to Navy officials that the firm be required regularly to submit information on the total number of African American hires in several job categories.

18. Report on Mallinckrodt Corporation and on Pennsylvania Transformer Company, n.d., both in Box 8, Joseph Houchins Files, PCGCP; PCGCP Newsletter, December 1955, Box 134, Series 1913, Ives Papers. This policy likely stemmed from personal beliefs about how best to combat racism, but the PCGC had come under fire from conservative columnist David Lawrence, who warned that companies with federal contracts would “be forced … into making sure white and Negro employees are in equal proportion.” See New York Herald Tribune, 8 September 1954 Google Scholar.

19. Alvin Rucker to Jacob Seidenberg, 30 November 1953, Box 1, Chronological Files, PCGCP; Jacob Seidenberg to Cloyte Murdock, 19 October 1954, Jacob Seidenberg t o Richard Nixon, 28 December 1954, both in Box 2, Chronological Files, PCGCP; NAIRO Reporter, February 1955, Box 7, Legislative Files, Americans for Democratic Action Papers, Wisconsin Historical Society, Madison. The National Community Relations Advisory Council raised similar complaints later that year. See Minutes of Meeting of the Government Contract Committee, 14 December 1955, Box 11, Joseph Houchins Files, PCGCP. Victories included persuading the District of Columbia to add a nondiscrimination clause in its contracts, convincing the Capital Transit Company of Washington, D.C., to announce a policy of nondiscrimination, lobbying several Chicago firms to remove racial questions from job applications, and opening up job opportunities at atomic-energy plants in Kentucky and Georgia. In the case of Capital Transit, company and union officials had resisted pressure from federal officials and civil rights groups for several years. The PCGC disposed of sixty-two of the 104 cases, with twenty-five being dismissed for lack of sufficient information or laying outside the committee's jurisdiction. Thirty-seven cases were closed after PCGC investigations had led it to conclude that federal contractors were in compliance or had already corrected violations. Contractor violations had occurred in thirteen of the thirty-seven cases. Forty-two cases were still under review. Such figures compared very unfavorably with the wartime FEPC, which had handled an average of three hundred cases per month by 1945.

20. Minutes of Meeting of the Government Contract Committee, 15 February and 15 March 1955, both in Box 11, Joseph Houchins Files, PCGCP; Report on Kewanee-Ross Corporation, on Five Boroughs Construction Corporation and Avant Construction Company, on Motorola Corporation, on McDonnell Aircraft Corporation, on Mallinckrodt Chemical Corporation, and on Management and Service Corporation, none dated, all in Box 8, Joseph Houchins Files, PCGCP; Douglas Pugh to Jacob Seidenberg, 12 November 1956, Box 7, Joseph Houchins Files, PCGCP; Memo for the File, 9 February 1954, Box 1, Chronological Files, PCGCP.

21. Manual for the Guidance of Personnel Engaged in Obtaining Compliance with the Equal Job Opportunity Program, March 1956, Box 40, General Subject File, PCGCP.

22. Ibid. Determining compliance, the committee concluded, was “a matter of judgment,” for there would be legitimate factors, such as a lack of well-qualified applicants, a refusal to apply for jobs, or a dearth of available positions, that might lead to few minority workers. Similarly, though a small minority presence, or the absence of minorities in certain job classifications was “cause for further investigation,” the committee again explicitly rejected a firm quota. “Because 10 percent of the population may be Negro in a given community, it does not follow that 10 percent of the workforce should be Negro,” the committee emphasized. See ibid.; Seidenberg, “President's Committee on Government Contracts.”

23. Jacob Seidenberg to Members of the Subcommittee for Measuring Progress, 15 May 1956, Box 30, General Subject Files, PCGCP; Jacob Seidenberg to Members of the President's Committee on Government Contracts, 13 June 1956, Minutes of Meeting of the Government Contract Committee, 20 June 1956, both in Box 11, Joseph Houchins Files, PCGCP; Seidenberg, “President's Committee on Government Contracts.” The PCGC briefly debated sending out questionnaires to contractors asking for a statistical breakdown of their workforce by race and assurances that they were complying with the nondiscrimination clause in several areas, but this plan was shelved due to concerns over contractors not returning the forms, firms supplying insufficient or misleading data so as to make future comparisons meaningless, and opposition from the Bureau of the Budget to mailing questionnaires to business. The committee again ran into opposition from the Defense Department. Well aware that most of the largest federal contractors were with their department, Pentagon officials strongly objected to having to determine the number of minority employees and minority enrollment in job-training programs. They were willing instead to obtain approximate numbers. The PCGC weighed Defense concerns carefully but concluded that advances could only be measured with firm totals.

24. Jacob Seidenberg to Julius Thomas, 5 November 1956, Box 9, General Subject Files, PCGCP; Memo for the Files, 19 November 1956, Box 6, General Subject Files, PCGCP; Report of Meeting with Social Agencies, 30 April 1957, PPS 307.97.3, NP; Summary of Discussion of Meeting with Representatives of Organized Labor, 30 April 1957, PPS 307.97.2, NP; Margaret Garrity to Jacob Seidenberg, 12 July 1957, Box 1, General Subject Files, PCGCP.

25. President's Committee on Government Contracts, Fourth Annual Report on Equal Job Opportunity, 1956-57, Box 126, Mitchell Papers; Minutes of Meeting of Government Contract Committee, 8 January 1957, Report of Meeting with Compliance Officers, 1 May 1957, both in Box 11, Joseph Houchins Files, PCGCP; Report on Meeting of Compliance Officers, 18 April 1957, Box 60, General Subject Files, PCGCP; Margaret Garrity to Jacob Seidenberg, 24 April 1957, Box 1, General Subject Files, PCGCP; Minutes of Meeting of Government Contract Committee, 5 February 1957. Nixon's interest in PCGC efforts coincided with several activities he and other Republicans undertook that spring to boost the party's position on civil rights issues. As president of the Senate, Nixon issued a parliamentary ruling against southern Democrats in the January battle to reform the filibuster rule. He also met with Martin Luther King Jr. and other civil rights leaders in June and later fought unsuccessfully against weakening amendments to the 1957 Civil Rights Act that summer. See Caro, Robert, Master of the Senate: The Years of Lyndon Johnson (New York, 2002), 3:857-58, 944-47, 990 Google Scholar.

26. Minutes of Meeting of Government Contract Committee, 8 January 1957: Manual for the Guidance of Personnel Engaged in Obtaining Compliance with the Equal Job Opportunit y Program. On the Grtggs case, see Graham, , Civil Rights Era, 382–89Google Scholar.

27. Report on the Compliance Survey Program, 9 September 1957, Box 4, Cornelius Ryan Files, PCGCP.

28. Minutes of Meeting of Compliance Officers, 14 August 1957, Box 60, General Subject Files, PCGCP; Report on the Compliance Survey Program, 9 September 1957, Box 4, Cornelius Ryan Files, PCGCP.

29. Minutes of Meeting of Government Contract Committee, 18 September 1957, Box 4, Cornelius Ryan Files, PCGCP; Margaret Garrity to Cornelius Ryan, 11 October 1957, Box 7, Cornelius Ryan Files, PCGCP. None of the forty compliance officets who attended a meeting in Chicago in September 1957 had received Nixon's May letter urging agencies to take a firmer stand with contractors. One officer had seen it unofficially bu t had been informed by his boss that it meant nothing.

30. Wall Street Journal, 24 October 1957 Google Scholar ; Statistical Report on Cases, 19 November 1957, Box 26, General Subject Files, PCGCP; U.S. News and World Report, 6 December 1957 Google Scholar ; News-Free Press (Chattanooga), 18 September 1957 Google Scholar ; Minutes of Meeting of Government Contract Committee, 18 September 1957, Box 4, Cornelius Ryan Files, PCGCP. In 1951 the South had received 7.6 percent of prime military contracts, but in 1955 it garnered 12.5 percent. Schulman, , From Cotton Belt to Sunbelt, 140 Google Scholar ; Memo, 3-10-59, PPS 307.135, NP.

31. Jacob Seidenberg to All Complianc e Officers, 27 November 1957, Box 10, Joseph Houchins Files, PCGCP.

32. Leonard DeLisio to Jacob Seidenberg, 6 December 1957, T. M. Baldauf to Jacob Seidenberg, 9 December 1957, both in Box 10, Joseph Houchins Files, PCGCP; President's Committee on Government Contracts Circular Number Three, n.d., Box 26, General Subject Files, PCGCP; Minutes of Meeting of Compliance Officers, 13 December 1957, Box 60, General Subject Files, PCGCP.

33. Report on the Compliance Survey Program Made to the President's Committee on Government Contracts, 14 November 1958, President's Committee on Government Contracts, Minutes of Meeting, 20 November 1958, both in Box 4, Cornelius Ryan Files, PCGCP.

34. Report on the Compliance Survey Program Made to the President's Committee on Government Contracts, 14 November 1958, President's Committee on Government Contracts, Minutes of Meeting, 20 November 1958, both in Box 4, Cornelius Ryan Files, PCGCP.

35. Margaret Garrity to Jacob Seidenberg, 8 October 1958, Eloise Kloke to Jacob Seidenberg, 5 December 1958, Notes on Compliance Seminar, 15-16 December 1958, Notes on Compliance Seminar, second day, Report on Compliance Seminar at Los Angeles, 16 January 1959, all in Box 2, Joseph Houchins Files, PCGCP; Compliance Officer Seminar, Case Number 2, Box 6, Joseph Houchins Files, PCGCP.

36. Memo from Jacob Seidenberg to Committee Members, 12 September 1958.

37. Press Release, 29 June 1959, Box 40, General Subject Files, PCGCP; Draft of Executive Chairman's Report, n.d., Jacob Seidenberg and Irving Ferman to PCGC Members, 24 September 1959, both in Box 3, Cornelius Ryan Files, PCGCP; Jacob Seidenberg to Lawrence Walsh, 10 November 1958, Box 4, Cornelius Ryan Files, PCGCP; David Mann to Irving Ferman and Jacob Seidenberg, 8 October 1959, David Mann to Jacob Seidenberg and Irving Ferman, 14 December 1959, both in Box 2, Correspondence with Agency Contractors Files, PCGCP; Report of the Subcommittee on Review and Enforcement, 19 April 1960, Box 85, General Subject Files, PCGCP; President's Committee on Government Contracts, Minutes of Meeting, 20 April 1960, FE 476.1, Irving Ferman Papers (FP), Richard Nixon Library, Yorba Linda, Calif.; Irving Ferman to Stephen Hess, 25 February 1968, FE 458, FP; Draft of memo, n.d., FE 479, FP; Lawrence Walsh to Irving Ferman, 28 March 1960, FE 383.2, FP; Joseph Houchins to Lawrence Walsh, 26 March 1960, Box 14, General Subject Files, PCGCP. Ferman negotiated with firms in several other industries, including airlines, and stressed the need for symbolic hires of African Americans. See Memo for the File, 10 May 1960, Box 4, Joseph Houchins Files, PCGCP. Some companies, however, still refused to cooperate regarding statistics on minority employees. An executive from Esso Oil, for example, argued that compiling statistics was illegal in many states and “might suggest present or future quotas.” See letter to N. S. Gilchrist, n.d., Box 3, Comparative Analysis Summaries of Minority Group Employment, PCGCP.

38. Irving Ferman to Richard Nixon, 10 August 1959, FE 157, FP; Memo on Cabinet Presentation, 18 December 1959, FE 244, FP.

39. Fred Lazarus Jr. to Jacob Seidenberg, 24 April 1956, Box 12, General Subject Files, PCGCP; Transcript, Youth Training Conference, 4 February 1957, PPS 307.96.05, NP; President's Committee on Government Contracts, Report on Minority Community Resources Conference, 15 January 1958, PPS 307.120, NP ; Collins, Robert, More: The Politics of Growth in Postwar America (New York, 2000), 40–44 Google Scholar ; President's Committee on Government Contracts, Sixth Report, Box 128, Mitchell Papers; Seidenberg, “President's Committee on Government Contracts.”

40. Transcript, Youth Training Conference, 4 February 1957, PPS 307.96.05, NP; President's Committee on Government Contracts, Report on Minority Community Resources Conference, 15 January 1958, PPS 307.120, NP; Sewell, , “‘The Best Man for the Job,’” 1,138–39Google Scholar.

41. Transcript, Youth Training Conference, 4 February 1957; President's Committee on Government Contracts, Report on Minority Community Resources Conference; New York Times, 25 November 1956 Google Scholar.

42. Report on Minority Community Resources Conference, 15 January 1958; Memo for the File, 24 April 1958, Box 2, General Subject Files, PCGCP; Resolution Adopted by the NAACP, 12 July 1958, Joseph Houchins to Jacob Seidenberg, 25 July 1958, both in Box 6, Cornelius Ryan Files, PCGCP; President's Committee on Government Conrracts, Minutes of Meeting, 17 September 1958, Memo for the Files, 4 June 1958, Jacob Seidenberg to Perkins McGuire, 6 November 1958, all in Box 4, Cornelius Ryan Files, PCGCP; Minutes of Meeting, PCGC, 2-18-59, Box 5, Ryan Files, PCGCP.

43. George Butler to Jacob Seidenberg, 28 April 1958, Memo for the Files, 4 June 1958, both in Box 4, Cornelius Ryan Files, PCGCP; Memo from Jacob Seidenberg to Committee members, 12 September 1958, PPS 307.119, NP; Jacob Seidenberg to Maxwell Rabb, 16 June 1953, Box 1, Chronological Files, PCGCP; Jacob Seidenberg to Maxwell Rabb, 2 August 1954, Box 2, Chronological Files, PCGCP; Joseph Houchins to Irving Ferman, 31 July 1959, Box 3, Joseph Houchins Files, PCGCP; President's Committee on Government Contracts, Minutes of Meeting, 17 September 1958, Box 4, Cornelius Ryan Files, PCGCP. Convair also insisted that it did not discriminate by citing a lack of racial classifications in its job ads, the handful of black workers it already employed, a dearth of black applicants for advanced-level jobs, and the fact that it had announced its policy of nondiscrimination to supervisory employees and area agencies.

44. Clarence Mitchell to Richard Nixon, 24 July 1958, J. J. Phelan Jr. to Jacob Seidenberg, n.d., both in Box 3, Joseph Houchins Files, PCGCP; President's Committee on Government Contracts, Minutes of Meeting, 15 October 1958, Box 5, Cornelius Ryan Files, PCGCP; Seidenberg, , “President's Committee on Government Contracts.”Google Scholar

45. President's Committee on Government Contracts, “Patterns for Progress,” 1960, PPS 307.178, NP; Minutes of Staff Council Meeting, 26 February 1959, Box 2, General Subject Files, PCGCP; Eloise Kloke to Cornelius Ryan, 27 February 1959, Box 7, Cornelius Ryan Files, PCGCP; Transcript of President's Committee on Government Contracts Meeting, n.d., FE480, FP; Richard Nixon to Thomas Shilgalis, 12 February 1960, Box 9, Joseph Houchins Files, PCGCP; President's Committee on Government Contracts, Minutes of Meeting, 18 February 1959, Box 5, Cornelius Ryan Files, PCGCP; New York Times, 8 October 1960; Seidenberg, “President's Committee on Government Contracts.”

46. Graham, , Civil Rights Era, 27–33 Google Scholar ; U.S. Civil Rights Commission, Employment: 1961 United States Commission on Civil Rights Report, 60; Pittsburgh Courier, 28 November 1959; Cleveland Call and Post, 23 March 1959 Google Scholar ; New York Amsterdam News, 14 May 1960 Google Scholar.

47. Seidenberg, , “President's Committee on Government Contracts.”Google Scholar On Nixon and affirmative action, see Kotlowski, , Nixon's Civil Rights, 97–124 Google Scholar ; Graham, , Civil Rights Era, 301–45Google Scholar ; Frymer and Skrentny, 131-56 ; Graham, Hugh Davis, “Richard Nixon and Civil Rights: Explaining an Enigma,” Presidential Studies Quarterly 26 (Winter 1996): 93–106 Google Scholar.

48. Seidenberg, , “President's Committee on Government Contracts.”Google Scholar