May 15, 1957: Ike Likes CAP, More or Less Says Racial Discrimination Bad

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On this date in 1957, President Dwight D. Eisenhower held a news conference and was asked about racial discrimination in the Civil Air Patrol.

An excerpt from his news conference from the American Presidency Project:

Q. Louis R. Lautier, National Negro Press Association: I have been requested to ask this question: Would you comment on the extent to which the Civil Air Patrol program is open to all the people without discrimination and, as an auxiliary of the Air Force, do you think it should seek recruits from all segments of the population?

THE PRESIDENT. Well, my contact with the Civil Air Patrol goes back to the beginning of World War II when I was Operations Officer of the War Department.

I found them a very splendid organization. They were completely a volunteer organization, but there was a law which provided that the Air Force in carrying out its missions could utilize this group which, so far as I know, was organized according to its own rules and under its own bylaws. And I think into those things the War Department, as it then was, at least, never inquired. I guess we thought it was none of our business.

Now, I do know at the present time the Air Force is allowed to give small amounts of time and, I believe, facilities to help these people in their training. Maybe to that extent you can say the Federal Government enters into this. But it is still a voluntary organization, and I think would have to determine its own rules for membership.

Now, for my part, as a personal thing, I believe that we hurt ourselves when, in military organizations, we try to discriminate among Americans in recruiting them. I believe that just as a matter of efficiency, it is better to use those that are capable of doing things strictly on merit and without such things as you were talking about.

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