it was a humid afternoon in mid-october of 1968 when major lavell merritt strode into the official press briefing in saigon, the 5:00 follies, and passed out copies of a statement in which he asserted that, quote, the american military services are the strongest citadels of racism on the face of the earth. the next day, his claims made newspapers throughout the united states. and the most powerful coverage showed up in "the new york times," although it was all over the place. and that's not because it made headlines, but because merritt's complaints appeared as confirmation of a story, a heart-wrenching story that the "times'" editors placed adjacent to it. here, the parents of a 21-year-old soldier who is being awarded posthumously the bronze star, had learned that he was missing in action the very same day they got a letter from another son's wife in germany, that they had been unable to get housing because of their race. and major merritt, just inches away on the page, offered a broader lesson. the article quoted him as saying, "the american people have been for years told that the mi