February 26, 1969
Page 4682
A FORTHRIGHT VIEW ON THE MILITARY DRAFT
HON. PETER N. KYROS OF MAINE IN THE HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES
Wednesday, February 26, 1969
Mr. KYROS. Mr. Speaker, I have been sincerely impressed with the high quality of public discussion concerning the future of the Selective Service System. A number of very articulate arguments have been made in behalf of proposals for placing military service on a voluntary basis. A number of arguments, to me even more persuasive, have been made against the adoption of such a system. No spokesman has been more forthright in advocating reforms in the Selective Service Act while seeking to maintain the concept of national service than Maine's Senator MUSKIE. In a recent speech at Miami University in Ohio, Senator MUSKIE presented his views to an audience most immediately affected by present and future Selective Service policies.
Columnist Joseph Alsop has recently taken note of Senator MUSKIE's remarks. While I do not endorse Mr. Alsop's criticisms of those who protest military service or the war in Vietnam, this column does point out the wisdom of Senator MUSKIE'S position on the draft. I insert Senator MUSKIE's speech in the CONGRESSIONAL RECORD together with Mr. Alsop's column, which appeared February 26 in the Washington Post:
(From the Washington (D.C.) Post, Feb. 26, 1969)
LITTLE-NOTICED MUSKIE SPEECH WISELY URGES DRAFT RETENTION
(By Joseph Alsop)
Facing a university audience, forthrightly calling for continuation of Selective Service, and getting the warmest applause for so doing, might be described as an unlikely feat. Yet just this feat was pulled off by Sen. Edmund Muskie, in a too-little-noticed speech at Miami University in Oxford, Ohio.
Sen. Muskie did not claim perfection for the draft as it now operates. In fact he called for almost exactly the same reforms in the Selective Service System that Sen. Edward Kennedy has more recently proposed in a newly submitted bill.
It was notable that Muskie chose his first university audience since the election to declare in favor of continuing the draft. And his tone of cool, long-headed national-mindedness was ever more notable.
"We have (always) insisted," Muskie remarked, “upon civilian control of the military. The relationship of the ordinary soldier to society is crucial in maintaining such control. Under our present system, his commitment to the military is limited. He will soon be replaced by someone else, and the goal of his military career is the end of his service.
"When and if a soldier becomes more concerned with self-perpetuation of the Army than with going home, society loses its control over the military. A volunteer army is a professional army, and the goals of a professional soldier are military.
"A professional soldier has a limited relationship to society outside his professional career. He has a limited commitment to a civilian life to which he does not expect to return. So long as the professional soldier is part of a larger, citizen army, the problem is limited ... (but in this matter) the entire relationship of military service to our society could be at stake."
There was more of the same sort, all on the same level of calmly thoughtful forthrightness. To those who have taken the trouble to see the war in Vietnam at first hand, everything that Muskie said will seem both wise and profoundly important.
In Vietnam, we have a citizen army, although with professional officers, largely professional NCOs, and a certain percentage of long-service men at all levels. Yet one of the really ironic comedies of the war has been the oft-repeated attempt, by antiwar newspapermen, to solicit antiwar talk from this citizen army. Unprintable remarks about "the peace-creeps back home" have been the standard response.
Even with this citizen army, in fact, it would be pretty dangerous for President Nixon to accept defeat in Vietnam. Fortunately, the President has no notion of doing anything of the sort. But if he did so, there would surely be a very bitter reaction, perhaps even capable of warping our basic political pattern, from most of the men who have made such great efforts and sacrifices in the Vietnamese war.
Change that citizen army to a volunteer, or professional, or mercenary army -- call it what you will. The political risk would then be very great indeed, in these times which call upon this country to maintain massive defense forces, year after year.
It is intensely reassuring that both Muskie and Kennedy, the two leading Democrats of the younger generation, have had the guts and good sense to see these points. In doing so, they have defied the silly left-wing fashions of the moment.
President Nixon, in contrast, is committed by his campaign statements to end the draft at some unspecified time in the future. If that should prove possible to do. But it now is likely to be proved impossible to do, by all sorts of weighty arguments.
The latter is the sensible interpretation, at any rate, of the appointment of a new commission to study reform or replacement of the Selective Service System. The Commission was launched, and its members were named, by Nixon's extremely able Secretary of Defense, Melvin Laird.
Reportedly, Secretary Laird's chosen commission chairman is his best predecessor of the Eisenhower years, former Secretary Thomas Gates. Gates is not what you would call a strong end-the-draft enthusiast. In truth, this new commission can be rather confidently expected to come to about the conclusions as the earlier, Democratic-named commission. This group, headed by one of the truly wise liberals, Burke Marshall, recommended reforming but continuing the draft.
And that Pentagon estimates for the extra cost of wholly volunteer armed services run
from $7 billion to $14 billion a year, with the higher figure more probable. You can see, then, why the Nixon Administration, Kennedy and Muskie are likely to agree in the end, albeit with due deliberate speed.
REMARKS BY SENATOR EDMUND S. MUSKIE, OXFORD, OHIO, FEBRUARY 17, 1969
I am speaking to an audience of college students for the first time since last year's campaign, but I want you to know that the hiatus was not due to unpleasant memories.
On the contrary, some of my most refreshing experiences during the campaign were with college audiences.
Now, during the campaign, this usually was as far in my prepared text as I was able to proceed.
If that heckler in the back row would like to come up and speak for five minutes. . . . . .
But the campaign is over, and most of the heckling has stopped.
In many ways, it was not a pleasant campaign.
The apathy and indifference of one generation produced a political process that was largely unresponsive to the next.
Emotion-charged issues made accommodation and compromise difficult for some and unacceptable for others.
And for many Americans easy answers were attractive in the face of difficult and complex problems.
Although the campaign is over, I am afraid that the fundamental social and political issues which provoked the divisions remain unresolved. Now we must deal with them.
One issue which is uppermost in your minds is the question of military service and the draft. Many of you feel -- and with good reason -- that the present system and its procedures are unfair and have little relevance to your goals and motivations. You want to serve your country, but many of you are convinced that there are more productive ways to serve.
On the other hand, in the present state of the world, and for an unpredictable time into the future, America must have an armed force; and American citizens must somehow staff it from among their own numbers.
In other words, American citizens must be prepared to fight for those values they consider worth fighting for; and this will require a military organization staffed by American citizens.
The problem is, "How do we organize it and how do we staff it?" If the solution to the problem need only reconcile the necessity of a military force with the aversion of some to military service and the draft, then a volunteer army is the obvious answer. In other words, we would simply pay enough to attract enough of those who as a consequence would be willing to spend their lives in military service.
But is this easy answer good enough? The easy answers of the past are the root of present dissatisfactions.
In other words, American citizens must be prepared to fight for those values they consider worth fighting for, and this will require a military organization staffed by American citizens.
Are you satisfied with so narrow an examination of this question? Fundamental ideals of equality and justice are at stake. And our democratic traditions and ideals have no small bearing on our answer.
We have not cherished a military force as a hallmark of our society. We have simply recognized it as a necessary function of government, at least for the foreseeable future. We have believed that its responsibilities must be limited, and that its position must be subordinate to civilian control.
We have developed this tradition and have insistently maintained it because, out of the experience of mankind, we have come to believe that the preservation of democratic ideals and institutions can be affected by the relationship of the military to the rest of society.
And so we have insisted upon civilian control of the military. The relationship of the ordinary soldier to society is crucial in maintaining such control. Under our present system, his commitment to the military is limited. He will soon be replaced by someone else, and the goal of his military career is the end of his service.
When and if a soldier becomes more concerned with self-perpetuation of the army than going home, society loses its control over the military.
A volunteer army is a professional army, and the goals of a professional soldier are military.
A professional soldier has a limited relationship to society outside his military career. He has a limited commitment to a civilian life to which he does not expect to return. So long as the professional soldier is part of a larger, citizen army, the problem is limited.
There is still another point.
A volunteer army may be more than professional or mercenary. Its creation may cost us more than civilian control of the military. The entire relationship of military service to our society could be at stake.
Historically, the citizen army of the United States has been a responsibility which all American men have had to face. Not all men have been chosen, and not all men have had to serve. But the distinctions have never been based on race or economic condition. At least, that is what we have intended.
The National Advisory Commission on Selective service recognized these ideals. Its Chairman, Burke Marshall, said that the Commission's objective was to "Find the means of securing the manpower needed by our national security in a manner as consistent as possible with human dignity, individual liberty, and fairness to all citizens."
That Commission rejected the suggestion that the draft be eliminated in favor of a volunteer professional army.
It concluded that such a system would probably cost too much money and would not provide large enough numbers of men in times of crisis. More importantly, however, it also concluded that such an army could become a mercenary force unrepresentative of the nation.
I want to underscore those last few words -- "unrepresentative of the nation." A professional army would attract those who could not otherwise find employment. We would force upon the poor by the use of pecuniary incentives the responsibilities which the affluent could afford to avoid.
It would, in some respects, be comparable to the purchase of substitutes which flourished during the Civil War.
There is more to equality than equal opportunity. Equality also involves an equal responsibility to the society. Should not military service in a democratic society be a responsibility unrelated to economic status?
Black Americans reenlist in the army at a higher percentage than whites because there is less opportunity for them if they return to civilian life. Could not the billions of dollars which we would spend to create a professional army be better spent equalizing the opportunities of civilian life?
There is one other point involved it seems to me; and that is the uses to which our armed forces may be committed in the future.
If we have a volunteer professional army, made up of those paid to devote their lives to military pursuits, will there be a temptation to use it more freely, or, at the very best, will its use be less inhibited as an instrument of national policy, than that of a draft citizen army?
One lesson I suspect we have learned out of our Vietnam experience -- and actually, I think it was embedded in our tradition before -- is that a draft citizen army (pulling citizens out of their private lives to bear the burdens and sacrifices of war) imposes, or is more likely to impose, restraints upon the policymaker. The purposes for which it can be used must be such as can command solid and widespread public support.
Such restraints may well be less restrictive in the case of a volunteer professional army. And let us not overlook the possibility that a military action begun with the volunteers may assume dimensions requiring recourse to a draft to meet the emerging manpower needs of an escalating conflict, and we will be back where we started.
There is, of course, another argument for the volunteer professional army which ought to be discussed in the context of the point I have just made. It is the argument that, with a higher level of professional training, and with less turnover in the field (because of the present rotation policy to spread the risks of exposure to combat), the army would be more effective. Such greater effectiveness, it is said, would have enabled us to handle the Vietnam problem with fewer men and possibly to have ended it sooner.
Again the question arises, however -- might there not be greater temptations to use such a force?
These are all serious questions we should ponder thoughtfully before opting for the volunteer army as the easy answer to the military service problem.
On the other hand, simply opting for the draft over a volunteer professional army does not automatically satisfy our doubts about its equality and fairness.
The draft, as presently operated, is unfair and unjust:
The draft boards themselves are not representative. Over one-fifth of the members are over 70. Only 1.3 percent are black.
The appeals procedure is sadly inadequate. A draftee seldom knows what his options are, or who to turn to for help and counsel.
The present system of selecting the oldest first disrupts a young man's life from the time he is i8 until he is 26. He faces eight years of uncertainty as to when -- or whether -- he will be called for induction.
Finally, the methods and criteria for selection are not at all uniform, and have questionable relevance to the nation's needs and purposes.
The entire system needs to be changed. First, 4000 local boards with almost that many different procedures and classifications are unnecessary. We should create regional selective service boards whose members have a better understanding of the problems of their constituents, and who more accurately reflect the region's population.
The boards should be strengthened by the adoption of uniform national standards, more adequate appeals procedures, and a greater effort to inform the draft registrant of his status and the timing of his induction.
Second, all men eligible for the draft should be selected by lottery at age 19, by the fair and impartial random selection recommended by the Marshall Commission.
Finally, when he is selected, the draftee should be allowed to choose among several options for national service -- military and otherwise -- which have been determined to be relevant to the needs of the nation.
Pre-selection deferments should be limited to strict criteria of health and occupation, but post-selection choices should be as broad as the needs of the country require and the imagination of our young people permit.
There is an enormous force for good among American youth today, and there is no reason why this force should be discouraged by lack of opportunity.
When we broaden the choice of service we must broaden it for all Americans. We cannot permit an educated elite to escape military service, dooming the poor -- black and white -- to its limited opportunities. Developing service alternatives open to all young Americans will require imagination and initiative. Much of that responsibility will be yours.
Alternative national service should be as open as military service. And its tasks should be no less taxing.
Its aims must not be subject to question or doubt. We should not create a haven for draft-dodgers, a program providing for two or three years of fun, or a series of makework projects.
We have seen the successes of the Peace Corps, the Teacher Corps, VISTA, and some of the programs of the war on poverty. The young people who made those programs successful have not found the going easy. But they have found that a vigorous commitment to real change in the lives of individual people can -- bit by bit -- bring about a real change for the better in the world.
If young Americans are willing to make this commitment, they should be encouraged. We believe in the value of the commitment, and we shall encourage you
To participate in a system of national service which recognizes that military service is only one alternative;
To develop these alternatives;
To make the choice as to how you can best contribute; and,
To help mount a broad attack on the roots of poverty and deprivation at home and abroad.
It is time for all of us, I think, to broaden our perspectives in this area.
Although military security is a major element of national security, the two are not synonymous.
Security comes from the development of a life for all people which affords each citizen the chance to reach his own greatness. It comes from the development of a society where we help one another in a mutual involvement which goes beyond charity.
It is important that we achieve this kind of society, but how we achieve it is also important.
Our aim is to help people of all nations secure this life, but not to secure it for them.
So our efforts must be consistent with our objectives. Our priorities and our policies should be examined and questioned.
Does our national security depend only on our military strength?
Does a volunteer professional army meet the tests of equality and human dignity? Individual citizens -- particularly you young people -- must participate in the search for the right answers.
You have questioned the present system and doubted its relevance.
You have seen the effects of apathy and indifference.
The present system has not been satisfactorily changed because those who have objected have never cared enough to suggest alternatives which meet the tests we cannot avoid -- tests of equality and justice.
I think we have the makings of legitimate alternatives before us. But we have to make some choices.
The responsibility to help make those choices is now yours. I hope you will set a better example.