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Number of class I-A registrants, ages 20 to 25, in relation to median age of induction,

1962-661

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1 Based on percentages qualified at draftee examinations in each calendar year. 2 Based on July-December 1966.

Source: Adapted from reports of Selective Service System.

Senator STENNIS. Mr. Chairman, I did not mean to take so much time. I want to ask one question about this. I read in the paper about the lottery. I haven't had a chance to read the statement this morning. Just to what extent is the lottery proposed here? You covered that no doubt in your statement here.

Mr. MORRIS. I did, sir, and we would be glad to again summarize. What is envisioned is that the system would operate in most respects exactly as it does today. When a man reaches 18, he would register with his draft board. He would then be sent for his mental and physical examination at our examining station. They would report their findings back to the draft board.

The draft board would, just as they do today, classify the man, deferring those who merit deferments by reason of hardship, divinity students, and all the other deferment rules in effect. This would finally leave, then, a group of class 1-A men, just as today, available for induction.

Since that group of men, after Vietnam, would in a typical year be about seven times greater than the number we would need to draft each year, we have a problem of selection, and it seems that the fairest way of selecting would be some kind of random selection system. It is that simple, sir.

Senator STENNIS And that would be applied to the men who had already been selected.

Mr. MORRIS. Classified as available and qualified.

Senator STENNIS. Now is this bill written to cover conditions when we are at war or when we are at peace?

Mr. MORRIS. Both, sir. That is the great virtue of the present act, which we basically wish to extend in its present form, the great flexibility it has had over many, many years, meeting draft calls of only a few thousand to as many as 50,000 or more a month.

Senator STENNIS. You feel that you need greater flexibility because of these conditions?

Mr. MORRIS. Sir, we feel that the bill as written, as it has been on the books for many years, provides that desired flexibilty. Senator STENNIS. I thank the Chair. Senator SYMINGTON. Senator Jackson?

That is all I have now.

Senator JACKSON. That is all I have now.

Senator SYMINGTON. Senator Cannon?

Senator CANNON. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.

Mr. Secretary, to follow up a little further on this point that Senator Stennis was raising with you, do you have to have authority or is there authority in the act here to permit you to call the 19- to 20-year olds first, or is that simply done by Executive order?

Mr. MORRIS. Yes, sir. General Hershey has long had the authority to propose Executive orders by age class. In fact the present system is so set up on the oldest-man-first basis.

Senator CANNON. The present system is simply done by Executive order and not by virtue of the act itself?

Mr. MORRIS The act gives the authority for such Executive order, sir. Senator CANNON. But you are saying you propose to do this, if we write an extension of the act.

Mr. MORRIS. Yes, sir.

Senator CANNON. Is that correct?

Mr. MORRIS. Yes, sir.

Senator CANNON. Now relating to the so-called Kilday amendment, if that is deleted from section 6(h), the law still provides that no person shall be deferred except on the basis of his individual status. Now with that language remaining, how could the President require boards to act uniformly on student deferments?

Mr. MORRIS. Sir, as Mr. Marshall I am sure will wish to testify tomorrow, his study found that the respect in which the local boards varied most widely in their interpretation of the regulations as handed down to them was in this area of student deferments. An example is how many semester hours of credit constitute a full-time student. Some boards were using 12 hours, others 15, some were simply accepting the institution's own certification. This was just one illustration that they found.

It seemed wise, in the interest of achieving effective national standards and uniformity in the application of rules, that such rules be permitted to be written at the national level. This provision of law does interfere with uniform application.

Senator CANNON. I think you missed the point of my question. What I said was that if this is repealed, this section here, there still is a provision in the law saying, "that no person shall be deferred except upon the basis of his individual status." Now how do you get around that? How can you prescribe a broad guideline that would permit the President to require boards to act uniformly on student deferment?

Mr. MORRIS. As I understand it, sir, the desire would be first to define what is a student, what constitutes a full-time student, so that every board would be able to make the same judgment from a factual point of view as to whether the man in fact was a full-time student or not, thus making it possible to avoid differing interpretations and differing treatment of individuals. The individual would still be considered as an individual.

Senator CANNON. You think that you could get around the other provision of the law?

Mr. MORRIS. I am not aware of a conflict, sir.

Senator CANNON. Well, there seems to be one to me, but in any event you can take a look at that. To get back to this lottery proposal, were you here when General Clark testified this morning?

Mr. MORRIS. Yes, sir; I was.

Senator CANNON. I would like your views as to why you think the system that he has proposed is not an effective and a fair system in the proposed call.

Mr. MORRIS. We are in full agreement, sir, on the key objective. As he pointed out, his Panel accepted the Department of Defense study last year with respect to the young age class system, so we are in agreement with the basic objective of making it possible to stabilize the age of induction at about 19 to 20. The problem is how to select from many, many times more equally qualified men in a normal period after Vietnam, when draft calls might be only one out of seven of the available men.

As we trace, in a little chart that appears behind page 8 of our statement, there are several alternatives which one might consider. (This chart is shown on p. 64.) One of the alternatives would be to apply more deferment rules, such as to permit married men to be deferred. Another would be to use scores on our qualification tests, our mental tests, and take only those scoring at a given point, but this would discriminate against the 85 percent of the men who scored in the lower range.

Another way would be to use the birth date approach as we understand General Clark proposed. It seems to us that this would mean you would discriminate against men born in the first part of the year, if you only needed 15 percent of the men available during a year.

Senator CANNON. I think that General Clark explained that at least to my satisfaction this morning by pointing out, he did not comment on this particular point, that your draft calls go on a month-by-month basis.

Mr. MORRIS. Yes, sir.

Senator CANNON. And your birth dates go on a month-by-month basis, so it doesn't necessarily mean that a man who is born the first part of the year would be discriminated against. A man who is born. the first part of the year maybe out of the category when you are making the February call the following year.

Mr. MORRIS. If one controlled the sequence on the basis of people born month-to-month in relation to monthly draft calls, there is another problem generated. For example, last October our draft call was 49,000 men. Four months later it was only 10,900 men. The quixotic nature of the draft call, which is always with us, would therefore have a discriminatory type result.

Senator CANNON. His chances of going would be greater, of course, when you have 49,000 versus 10,000, but his chances would also be greater if you are using a lottery system, would they not?

Mr. MORRIS. The lottery system, sir; that it is proposed be considered would be established once or twice a year probably. You would have a total pool of men ranked and available for call throughout the succeeding period of 6 to 12 months. This would be the method of call.

Senator CANNON. In other words, you wouldn't keep adding the 19-year-olds to the pool on a month-by-month basis?

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Mr. MORRIS. In our own thinking we would not, sir. This is one of the issues that does need further consideration.

Senator CANNON. Now with respect to the deferment policies, what other deferment policies would you propose to change with respect to the present policies that are followed?

Mr. MORRIS. The present deferment policies, sir?

Senator CANNON. Yes.

Mr. MORRIS. The President has said in his message that the most important objective in this respect is to avoid student deferments becoming virtual exemptions, as the facts indicate that they have in some cases in the past, with men being about to continue on to age 26 and beyond as students, and as our own figures show, only some 27 percent of those in graduate school category having served compared to 71 percent with undergraduate degrees. So there needs to be the development of rules that will prevent the occurrence of the pyramiding of the exemptions due to student deferments in the future. This I believe to be the most important of the revisions required. Senator CANNON. You haven't proposed anything so far with respect to undergraduate deferments?

Mr. MORRIS. No, sir.

Senator CANNON. And you haven't proposed anything with respect to ROTC deferments?

Mr. MORRIS. They would be continued, sir, we are certain under any system.

Senator CANNON. And you have proposed a change with respect to postgraduate deferments by limiting that to medical and dental?

Mr. MORRIS. This was the President's decision, sir, in his message. Senator CANNON. Have you made any change with respect to occupational and agricultural deferments over present policy, or do you propose any?

Mr. MORRIS. Sir, the belief is that by going to the stable 19-year-age class, that requirements for such deferments from a draft point of view virtually disappear, as General Clark testified this morning. Only very minor percentages of men at that age would have any ability to be in an occupation that would warrant deferment, and most of them are still unmarried and are not fathers at that age. So by going to the young age class the problem tends to solve itself.

Senator CANNON. Now, what about hardship deferments? Would you propose any change there?

Mr. MORRIS. No, sir.

Senator CANNON. And paternity deferments, would you propose any change in the present regulations on that?

Mr. MORRIS. We would not propose any change at this time, sir. There are considerations that if college student deferments are permitted to continue in the future, that the man would not have an automatic right to deferment upon graduation, due to paternity.

Senator CANNON. You mean he would take his college deferment and be subject to that same category when he came out of his college work?

Mr. MORRIS. Correct, sir. He would forgo other deferments by virtue of having elected student deferment. This was the proposal in fact of the minority group of the Marshall Commission and of the Clark panel as we understand it, sir.

Senator CANNON. Now, with respect to conscientious objectors, you undoubtedly hear the the proposal for an amendment of the law this morning. What are your comments on that?

Mr. MORRIS. This is an area that is not really within our province. The responsibility of the Defense Department is to set the fitness standards-mental, moral, and physical. Matters such as conscientious objectors and others are of concern to Selective Service, and we frankly cannot testify properly in that area.

Senator CANNON. But you establish the policy in a lot of these deferment areas. I think you would certainly have some judgment as to what you think should or should not be done with respect to deferments in these areas.

Mr. MORRIS. Our only policies, sir, have to do with fitness standards, mental, moral, and physical.

Senator CANNON. I was in hopes that the Department would come up here and make a recommendation that we come out with an amendment in line with the suggestion this morning, and I for one am certainly going to urge that on the committee at the proper time.

Mr. Secretary, I asked General Clark this morning whether his committee considered any question of religious deferment for missionary purpose. That is carried out as a policy matter now. you propose to make any change in that regard?

Would

Mr. MORRIS. We as a department would not, sir. Ministers and divinity students are deferred now, and we would assume that should continue. I think it is a matter of law now.

Senator CANNON. And just one further question, Mr. Secretary. I think you answered Senator Stennis that an E-4 was a corporal. You may want to check that. I am not certain.

Mr. MORRIS. That is what they tell me, sir In the Army he is a corporal. He is a petty officer third class in the Navy, a corporal in the Marine Corps; and and airman first class in the Air Force.

Senator CANNON. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. That is all I have. Senator SYMINGTON. Senator Miller?

Senator MILLER. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.

Mr. Secretary, if Congress wants to make sure that there are deferments for college students, we have to change the law and put that provision in the law, wouldn't we?

Mr. MORRIS. Sir, I don't think so. The decisions in this area have, under the present law and for many years, been made administratively in accordance with requirements for manpower from time to time.

The issue has been very clearly dramatized and focused by the recent studies of both the Clark panel and the Marshall Commission. It is one deserving a great deal of attention. The President got conflicting advice in this area, as he said in his message, and therefore before making any further decision, he wished to hear fully the thoughts of the public and the Congress in the matter.

Senator MILLER. I understand, but if we want to make sure, regardless of who the President is, and regardless of what his opinion is, that college students are going to be deferred, we have to put that in the law, don't we?

Mr. MORRIS. I would think that is correct, sir.

Senator MILLER. On page 6 you state:

In order to reduce the need for military manpower, a total of 114,200 military positions in support-type activity will be eliminated and replaced with civilians.

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