Word: draft
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Dates: during 1960-1969
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While groping for peace, Richard Nixon still faces the grim business of managing war. Last week he sought to humanize the machinery by which his soldiers are conscripted. "The present draft arrangements," he said in a message to Congress, "make it extremely difficult for most young people to plan intelligently as they make some of the most important decisions of their lives, decisions concerning education, career, marriage and family...
...proposal would retain undergraduate college deferments, a "wise national investment" in Nixon's view. A student would be draft-proof until he graduated or left school. Then he would go into the prime age group for a year as if he were still...
...knew that his birth date fell in the latter half of the sequence, he could pretty well forget about military service at present draft levels because only about half of the potential 600,000-man pool would be taken. If he made it through his 19th year without being drafted, he would be free unless a national emergency occurred that exhausted the supply of 19-year-olds...
...Role. The proposals were hardly original with the Nixon Administration. Lyndon Johnson put forward a similar plan, and several bills in Congress have the same general goals. The obstacle has been the House Armed Services Committee and its chairman, Mendel Rivers of South Carolina. Rivers fears that most draft-reform plans are the first step toward centralizing Selective Service and reducing the autonomy of the nation's 4,000 local draft boards. However, he now professes to have an open mind, and his conversion could be crucial. The reforms have a good chance of making it through the Senate...
Should the bill become law, it will still leave many draft critics unsatisfied. It fails to deal with such questions as conscientious objection and the inconsistencies among local boards in awarding deferments. Nixon promised to have Hershey and the National Security Council study the remaining problems, with new recommendations due Dec. 1. At the same time, Nixon maintains his position that the best way to reform the 29-year-old draft is to eliminate it altogether. Ways to redeem Nixon's campaign pledge to seek an all-volunteer Army are under consideration by an advisory committee. So radical...