Broadening the Base

President Johnson's request for reform of the nation's draft laws got a powerful boost last week from the Senate Armed Services Committee. The committee unanimously recommended that the Selective Service Act be extended for four years beyond June 30, when some of its main clauses expire, and agreed with Johnson that: 1) 19-year-olds, the youngest draft-eligible group, should be taken before the oldest, the 26-year-olds; 2) post-graduate students, except those studying medicine and dentistry, should not be exempt; and 3) the President should be free to try out a lottery draft system, although the committee was far from enthusiastic about the scheme.

On the politically explosive question of whether deferments should be granted to undergraduates, the committee said yes. Johnson had failed to take a position on the matter, presumably for fear that if he opposed such deferments, he would only add fuel to the already flammable opposition to the war on the nation's campuses. In fact, though, a great many students object to the draft for the very reason that they do not believe that their academic status merits exemption from military duty. At a routine monthly meeting of the Yale faculty last week, the professors agreed, passing a resolution that opposed undergraduate deferments. The criticism of such exemptions centers on their unfairness to deprived white and Negro youths who do not have the money or education to enroll in college. While the committee action failed to answer that criticism, its various recommendations would make the Selective Service System considerably more equitable than it has been in the past.

The Armed Services Committee last week also recommended that the law be changed to permit alien physicians and dentists to be drafted until they are 35--a proposal that is likely to raise a howl of protest abroad. Even under the current plan, whereby an alien may be drafted up to the age of 26, there has been resentment by foreign nationals. The deaths in Viet Nam of three Peruvians who were drafted into the Army while living in the U.S. so incensed the Peruvian government recently that it proposed a law to draft all foreign-born residents between 20 and 50. Though U.S. drafting of aliens has been harshly condemned, the fact is that only foreigners who are planning to make the U.S. their home are required to go into the armed forces.

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