Author Alan Gropman was interviewed for BookCast by Fairfax County Public Library Director Sam Clay. BookCast is sponsored by Virginia Commerce Bank through the Fairfax Library Foundation.

• Alan Gropman is a retired Air Force colonel who served for 27 years and flew 650 combat missions in Vietnam. He is the Distinguished Professor of National Security Policy at the National Defense University’s Industrial College of the Armed Forces.



• Dr. Gropman is the author of numerous books, monographs, and articles, including Mobilizing U.S. Industry in World War II, Big “ L”: American Logistics in World War II and The Air Force Integrates,1945-1964. He holds a Ph.D. in history from Tufts University.



• First published in 1977 and republished in 1998, The Air Force Integrates, published by the Smithsonian History of Aviation Series, chronicles the decisions that led to the desegregation of the Air Force from 1945 to the passage of the Civil Rights Act in 1964.



• Gropman argues that the Air Force desegregated itself not for moral or ethical reasons, but for military efficiency after a series of racial conflicts that began in 1945 when 60 black officers were arrested for entering a whites-only club at Freeman Airfield.