possible; write letters to editors; ask for more radio and television discussion of the issue by networks and local stations; raise the question of amnesty on callin radio and T.V. programs; in conversation, ask people how they feel about amnesty in the light of historical precedent, religious group statements, etc. It should be emphasized that these are only sample possibilities. The imagination and creativity of individuals and groups will hopefully produce others. The important thing is not how education is done, but that it is done.

Mr. SMITH. Thank you, Reverend Barger. I think that is a very interesting point that you have made. And it is one that perhaps as we go down the road with the amnesty maybe even a more important one, and that is that amnesty does not mean exoneration.

There has been some testimony today that you probably heard that objected to amnesty on the grounds that it amounted to saying the U.S. Government was wrong and these people that had a matter of conscience were right. You are bringing out the fact that amnesty does not mean that, and that maybe a very important point in any future legislation that might come. And we might even in such legislation say that explicitly, in order to make it clear to everybody. But it is a very helpful point.

Thank you.

Reverend BARGER. You are welcome. I just want to underline that amnesty would be neither commendation or condemnation by either the Government or the organizations.

Mr. SMITH. As was pointed out before, something in the nature of reconciliation without judgments being made.

Reverend BARGER. Yes, sir.

Mr. SMITH. Thank you.

Mr. KASTEN MEIER. The subcommittee appreciates your statement very much and accepts it in the nature of a benediction on our first of 3 days of hearing on the subject of amnesty. You have also written on this subject, and we look forward to reading the piece that you have already distributed.

Reverend BARGER. Might I claim a point of personal privilege, Mr. Chairman, on behalf of the witnesses who have been here all day, and I am sure the remaining witnesses in thanking you as chairman and the distinguished members of your committee, both the majority and the minority, for holding these hearings and for helping us all to realize more what is at stake.

Mr. SMITH. Mr. Chairman, I would like to say-and perhaps we ought to say for the record-that Reverend Barger has supplied each one of us with his book, "Amnesty, What Does It Really Mean." And we thank you for this.

Reverend BARGER. We are doubly appreciative.

Mr. KASTEN MEIER. This concludes the first day of hearings on the question of amnesty. The hearings will resume in this room on Monday morning at 10 a.m. Until that time we stand adjourned.

[Whereupon, at 5:18 p.m., the committee adjourned, to reconvene at 10 a.m., Monday, March 11, 1974.]

[The statement referred to at p. 52 follows:]

STATEMENT ON AMNESTY (OCTOBER 1973)

We ask again that the public and the government face the fact that for all that has happened in our Vietnamese war, only men who are young have been or

are being punished; and that in disproportionate numbers these men are nonwhite and from low economic estate.

We are speaking of those men who are or were imprisoned for refusing induction; of those who expatriated themselves before or after induction or who have lived underground; and of those given "less-than-honorable" or other discriminatory discharges from the military.

We believe that justice justice that is symmetrical in its equal treatment of all citizens-requires an unconditional amnesty, pardon, or fair restitution for all men who are charged with, may be charged with, or have been convicted for offenses arising out of their refusal to participate in the military action in Southeast Asia, or for offenses against military law while doing so.

A country which has found only a lieutenant guilty for My Lai, has found no one legally culpable for the massive deception revealed in the Pentagon Papers and in the disclosures of later lawlessness and deceit in the war's conduct, has seen its honor sacked by Watergate and similar affairs-such a country so long as it may belong to a just people cannot now impose its penalties only on these young and powerless men. That cannot be fair, cannot be in keeping with our best ideals.

Our war, we trust, is over. The nation now has much to do, much that it can do only as a united people. There is too little mutual trust among us, too much that is corrosive of hopes and spirits.

A general and unconditional amnesty would be a simple and clear act. It would be a sign that we want to live at peace with each other, that we want to end within ourselves the awful division caused by the war, that we want to get on with the work of making this a better land.

Who can be opposed to such an act? Can the dead speak, and advise us; or can any speak for them? Would we really want to turn to parents of the dead and set them speaking against each other, some urging amnesty and some opposed? Are veterans (including former prisoners of war) opposed? They appear divided, many for, many against, many indifferent. Although interest and weight do attach to the views of the veterans of this war who were themselves enlisted men, even they, in the tradition of our civil society, have now to advance those views as citizens, and not as a distinct group.

Can Congressmen and members of the administration, both present and former ones, who put us into the war and who kept us in it so long, have it in their hearts to absolve themselves while they hurt these young men?

Can those Congressmen who opposed the war, in the way the public empowered them to do, want to hurt those powerless men who opposed the war in the only ways they could or knew how, men who in the process helped create and sustain that public disgust with the war which finally gave some success to Congressional effort to end it?

We believe that Congress and the President are, in fact, fully free to act for amnesty, and that they cannot rightfully claim to be held back by constituents' pressures. We believe amnesty, as was segregation in the South, is an issue wherein statesmen would not trade on fears but can, and therefore should, lead. We believe that the people will respond helpfully to forthright leadership, as did people in the South when segregation was outlawed.

We believe that if Congress or the President will give the American people the opportunity to be generous and just, the nation will be so. We ask for that opportunity.

Does this nation, that was established to "form a more perfect union" and to "insure domestic tranquility," not want to heal itself? Do we not want to take this chance on justice?

There are few acts a government can decide upon that clearly and immediately benefit individuals; amnesty would be one. We think it would be even more. We would be saying to ourselves that we now put the Vietnam war behind us, with its terrible freight of bitterness and recrimination, and of corruption and brutality too. We would signal a decisive turning away from the darkness of the war years, and toward rebuilding and restoring and healing, both here and, as we are morally bound to do, in Indo-China. We also would be affirming to ourselves that America has no time or need for vengeance against ourselves, and especially not against our youth. We would, instead, be welcoming the return, as free members of a freer society, of young men who can give much to the futuretheirs and ours and our country's.

Roger Baldwin, founder and former Director, American Civil Liberties Union. Rev. Eugene Carson Blake, retired General Secretary, World Council of Churches.

Rabbi Irwin M. Blank, Temple Ohabei Shalom, Brookline, Mass.

Rev. Robert McAfee Brown, Professor of Religious Studies, Stanford University.

Heywood Burns, Director. National Conference of Black Lawyers.

Rev. Will D. Campbell, Director, Committee of Southern Churchmen.

Rev. W. Sterling Cary, President, National Council of Churches of Christ in the U.S.A.

Kenneth B. Clark, Professor of Social Psychology, City University of New York: President. Metropolitan Applied Research Center.

Rev. William Sloane Coffin Jr., Chaplain, Yale University.

John R. Coleman, President, Haverford College.

Robert Coles, psychiatrist, Harvard University; author.

Dorothy Day, Editor and publisher, The Catholic Worker.

Patricia M. Derian, Democratic National Committeewoman from Mississippi.

Leslie Dunbar, Executive Director, The Field Foundation.

Vernon A. Eagle, Executive Director, The New World Foundation.

Rabbi Maurice N. Eisendrath, President, Union of American Hebrew Congregations.

Eric H. Erikson, psychoanalyst and author.

W. H. Ferry, Executive Director, D.J.B. Foundation.

Lawrence J. Friedman, President, U.S. National Student Association.

Willard Gaylin, Professor of Psychiatry and Law, Columbia University; author.

Ernest Gruening, former U.S. Senator from Alaska.

Michael Harrington, Chairman, Democratic Socialist Organizing Committee; author.

Rev. Theodore M. Hesburgh, C.S.C., President, University of Notre Dame.
M. Carl Holman.

David R. Hunter.

Rev. James M. Lawson, Jr., Pastor, Centenary Methodist Church, Memphis, Tenn.

John Lewis, Executive Director, Voter Education Project, Atlanta, Georgia. Robert Jay Lifton, Professor of Psychiatry, Yale University.

Benjamin E. Mays, President, Board of Education, Atlanta, Georgia ; President Emeritus, Morehouse College.

David McReynolds, War Resisters League.

Charles Morgan. Jr., Executive Director, Washington National Office, American Civil Liberties Union.

The Rt. Rev. Paul Moore Jr., Bishop of New York, Episcopal Church.

Rev. Robert V. Moss, President, United Church of Christ.

Aryeh Neier, Executive Director, American Civil Liberties Union.

Rev. Kenneth Neigh, retired General Secretary of the former Board of National Missions of the United Presbyterian Church in the U.S.A.

Eleanor Holmes Norton, Chairwoman, New York City Commission on Human Rights.

Hon. Justine Wise Polier.

Roy Pierce, Professor of Political Science, University of Michigan.

Daniel H. Pollitt, Professor of Law, University of North Carolina Law School. Charles O. Porter, former U.S. Congressman from Oregon; Chairman, National Committee for Amnesty Now.

Rev. Stephen G. Prichard, Director of Training, Institutes of Religion and Health.

Louise Ransom, Director, Americans for Amnesty: Gold Star Mother. Joseph L. Rauh, Jr., Counsel, Leadership Conference on Civil Rights. Milton J. E. Senn, Sterling Professor Emeritus of Pediatrics and Psychiatry, Yale University.

Charles E. Silberman, Director, The Study of Law and Justice; author. William P. Thompson, Stated Clerk of the General Assembly, United Presbyterian Church in the U.S.A.

John William Ward, President, Amherst College.

Raymond M. Wheeler, President, Southern Regional Council; Chairman, Children's Foundation; physician.

Andrew J. Young, Member of Congress from Georgia. (Titles for identification only.)

[The document referred to at p. 242 follows:]

[From The Nation, Apr. 16, 1973]

THE TRUTH ABOUT DESERTERS

(By Robert K. Musil)

Mr. Musil, a former Army captain active in the GI movement at Fort Benjamin Harrison, was discharged as a conscientious objector. He is associate secretary of the Central Committee for Conscientious Objectors, an agency for military and draft counseling, and co-editor of CCCO News Notes.

Myths abound about deserters. A colorful Howard Johnson's place mat warns diners on the New Jersey Turnpike that picking up hitchhikers can be dangerous-many of them are AWOLS. Even liberal Sen. Philip A. Hart characterized AWOLS at the Kennedy hearings on the draft and amnesty last spring as "guys who take off with the company cash."

In the growing debate over amnesty in the new cease-fire period, everyone is getting into the anti-AWOL act. In a carefully orchestrated media campaign, Administration spokesmen, including columnist William S. White, White House special counsel Charles W. Colson, and speechwriter Patrick S. Buchanan, have tried to minimize the number of deserters and to label them "malingerers, opportunists, criminals and cowards." Even the usually moderate editorial page of The New York Times, in discussing amnesty (February 23), draws “a sharp distinction between them [draft resisters] and those who deserted the Armed Forces."

On the surface, those who degrade deserters seem to have a solid case. They point out that unlike draft evaders, AWOLS have already taken an oath to serve their country; many of them have criminal records, or are fleeing prosecution. They add that legal avenues of redress of grievances were open to them. Finally, and most significantly, they claim that the motivations of deserters were neither conscientious or pure. In support of this final point, one of great rhetorical strength in the amnesty debate, they often allude to or quote Pentagon studies from the Office of the Assistant Secretary of Defense for Manpower and Reserve Affairs [OASD (M&RA)] that purport to show that only 5 per cent of all deserters were motivated by anti-war feelings.

These myths are held for various reasons. Most of the public is simply ignorant about AWOLS. They rely on World War II clichés and stereotypes of the bad guy slinking away from his buddies under fire. Or, lacking the data or background to challenge them, they simply accept official explanations. Some politicians inadvertently add fuel to the myths when, hoping to appear reasonable and pragmatic, they speak about amnesty for draft resisters, but neglect deserters in order to gain support.

The current Administration campaign to disparage deserters and perpetuate misconceptions is another matter. [See "What Nixon Forgets: Congress Bestows Amnesty" by Harrop A. Freeman, The Nation, March 26.] By portraying the numbers of deserters as large as insignificant, and impugning their motives as confused at best, but more likely as dishonorable and criminal, the Administration hopes in one blow to discredit its amnesty opposition, justify its war policies, and cover up longstanding abuses in the armed forces.

In this climate, we need a fresh, hard look at deserters. The facts are difficult to come by, but they clearly explode all of the old myths. First, it must be emphasized that the term "deserter" is simply a convenience. It is used by the military to refer to those persons who have been absent without leave for a period of thirty days or more, been dropped from the rolls of their unit, and then administratively classified as deserters for purposes of record keeping, notification of the FBI, etc. No person absent without leave is legally a deserter until convicted of that offense under the Uniform Code of Military Justice. Desertion, as an offense, requires an intent to remain away from the military permanently, and is rather difficult to prove. Thus Pentagon statistics about deserters refer only to those persons who have been dropped from their unit rolls, and do not include a far larger number of persons who at any given time are AWOL for less than one month.

The number of deserters during the Vietnam era is staggering and is probably underreported. From fiscal 1965 through early fiscal 1973 (August 1, 1964– December 31, 1972) the Pentagon reports 495,689 cases of desertion, not counting

France. In England there were amnesties granted after the Civil War in 1651 and to the Boers in South Africa in 1903.10 France, Norway, Germany, Belgium, Japan and the Netherlands all amnestied their enemies and their own citizens after the second world war."

In the United States, fifteen presidents have exercised the power of amnesty on thirty-seven separate occasions." The first American amnesty, dates back to the very beginning of the country. In 1795, President George Washington granted a "full, free and entire pardon" to those who were involved in the Whiskey Rebellion, an insurrection in Pennsylvania, observing:

"For though I shall always think it a sacred duty to exercise with firmness and energy the constitutional powers with which I am vested, yet it appears to me no less consistent with the public good than it is with my presonal feelings to mingle in the operations of Government every degree of moderation and tenderness which the national justice, dignity and safety may permit." 19

John Adams issued “a full, free and absolute pardon to all and every person concerned" in the Fries Rebellion of 1799. Thomas Jefferson in 1807 pardoned all deserters from the U.S. army who would return to their units within four months. James Madison issued three proclamations of the same nature covering deserters in the War of 1812. Andrew Jackson granted an amnesty in 1830 to all deserters from the army, with the interesting condition that they would never again serve in the armed forces of the United States!"

The Civil War could provide something of an analogy for our present national situation. After that war's end, vigorous prosecution was not undertaken against deserters or draft evaders on the Union side. More interestingly, Abraham Lincoln and Andrew Johnson granted amnesty to the Confederates who had taken up arms against the Union and could have been prosecuted for treason. Johnson stated that:

"A retaliatory or vindictive policy, attended by unnecessary disqualifications, pains, penalties, confiscations and disfranchisement, now as always could only tend to hinder reconciliation among the people and national restoration, while it must seriously embarrass, obstruct and repress popular energies and national industry and enterprise." "

The Lincoln and Johnson administrations were together responsible for more than one-half of this nation's amnesties. Johnson, on Christmas day, 1868, issued a universal and unconditional amnesty, saying: “. . . universal amnesty would tend to secure permanent peace, order and prosperity throughout the land, and to renew and fully restore confidence and fraternal feeling among the whole people and their respect and attachment to the National Government. . . .' Remaining civil disabilities connected with the Fourteenth Amendment were removed by a congressional amnesty on June 6, 1898.

22

There was no general amnesty for some time after the first world war (altho in 1924 President Coolidge granted amnesty to approximately 100 persons who had deserted since the World War I armistice). The last amnesty of any significance was given by Franklin Roosevelt at Christmas, 1933, to all violators of the first world war draft laws who had served their sentences. It is true that in 1947 Harry Truman granted a complete pardon to 1,523 offenders of the Selective Service and Training Act of 1940, but in this instance each case was considered separately and the pardons were individual. During the Korean War President Truman pardoned all ex-convicts who had served in the war for at least a year. He also amnestied all who had been convicted of desertion between August, 1945, and June, 1950.28

In reflecting on this representative history, it might be noted that each war has been different, conditioned as it was by different times and circumstances. Yet, I believe, the Vietnam War is the most different of all. It has been the longest war in which the United States has ever been involved. Its desertion rate was also the highest of all American wars (nearly double that of the second world

18 Murray, Polner. When Can I Come Home?, New York: Doubleday, 1972, p. 133. 17 Ibid.

18 Allan L. Damon, "Amnesty." American Heritage, October, 1973, p. S.

19 Quoted in testimony of Henry Schwarzschild, Kennedy Hearings, p. 302.

20 Testimony of Professor Henry Steele Commanger, Kennedy Hearings, pp. 182-92. 21 Ibid.

22 Daniel Migliore, "Amnesty: An Historical Justification for its Continuing Viability," Journal of Family Law, Vol. 12. No. 1 (1972–73). p. 70.

23 Allan L. Damon, “Amnesty," American Heritage, October, 1973, p. 78.

24 Thid.

25 Miglione, op. cit., p. 79.

20 Norman Weisman, "A History and Discussion of Amnesty," Columbia Human Rights Law Review, Vol. 4, No. 2 (Fall, 1972), p. 533.