On July 26, 1948, President Harry Truman issued Executive Order 9981. The purpose of the order was twofold. One purpose was to declare that it would be the policy of the United States to provide equality of opportunity for members of the armed forces without regard to race, color, religion, or national origin. In this sense, armed forces desegregation could be said to have launched the civil rights movement that dominated the 1950s and 1960s. The second, more specific, purpose was to establish a seven-member advisory committee to study and recommend specific steps that the armed forces could take to implement the desegregation policy. The order granted the committee investigative authority and ordered the armed forces and other federal executive agencies to provide testimony and documents that the committee needed to carry out its mandate.