Reopening an Old Debate

But with a new twist: Should women be registered for the draft?

As TV cameras whirred, a young man triumphantly burned what looked like a draft card. "Hell no, we won't go!" chanted the students who surrounded him on Sproul Plaza at the University of California at Berkeley. The plaza has been the site of bitter student protests dating back to the Free Speech Movement of 1964. This time, about 1,000 young men and women were there to demonstrate against Jimmy Carter's call to resume draft registration.

But the similarities to the antidraft protests of the Viet Nam War years were only on the surface. For one thing, the draft card was a facsimile; nobody could find the genuine article, which the Government stopped issuing in 1976. For another, the protesters were outnumbered by students who had gathered near by to be entertained by a mime and a punk-rock group. And on the fringes of the antidraft crowd, Joseph Taylor, a black graduate student in psychology, voiced a view that would hardly have been heard at Berkeley during the Viet Nam War. Said he: "This is a sincere effort on the part of the students, but they are not seeing the whole picture. We have the freedom in this country to talk this way. We also have a responsibility for the freedoms we enjoy. I wouldn't want to go, but what's the alternative?"

Across the country, Americans last week were debating the same question. The participants included some of the leading antiwar activists of the Viet Nam War years. At a rally at Stanford, Daniel Ellsberg urged the students to "mutiny" against draft registration. At Harvard, Nobel Laureate George Wald urged a group of protesters to "take control of your lives. Learn to say no to what you know is wrong." In Philadelphia, the Central

Committee for Conscientious Objectors announced that it was reviving its nationwide network of draft counselors. Said John Judge, a member of the committee: "The U.S. has never had a draft registration without a draft, and we have rarely had a draft without a war."

But there were some startling crosscurrents. At Columbia University, a score of students tore down a placard reading DRAFTED that had been placed by protesters around the neck of a statue of their alma mater. They draped her in a U.S. flag. The draft resisters charged, and the two groups briefly engaged in some pushing and shoving. Students polled by the

Harvard Crimson divided almost equally: 50% against draft registration, 47% in favor, the rest undecided.

One reason for the initial lack of opposition is the widespread belief that the Soviet Union is an aggressor. Said Berkeley Mathematics Professor Stephen Smale, who demonstrated against the Viet Nam War and is now the father of a draft-age son: "That gives [draft registration] a different character. It's a long way from what happened in the 1960s." Paul Ginsberg, dean of students at the University of Wisconsin at Madison, cited another reason for the relative quiet: "The vast majority of students were only 10 or 11 when we last had a draft. They are only vaguely aware that something is about to interrupt their lives."

Among blue-collar youths, support for draft registration seems to be even higher. In Boston, for instance, Carpenter Daniel Avenell, 20, declared: "I would be glad to go and be in the front lines--and I do mean the front." Said Bartender Aengus O'Leary, 20: "Registration is a good idea. People are panicking about a draft, but I think they should serve their country." The blue-collar youths, however, voice one all-important reservation: this time there should be no exemptions--if anybody goes, everybody should.

Including women? That is the toughest question of all for most people. Rosalynn Carter, along with Defense Secretary Harold Brown and Army Secretary Clifford Alexander, believes that young women should be required to register --and be drafted, if it comes to that.

But feminists are torn. Many are former antiwar activists and oppose a peacetime registration and draft of any sort; at the same time, they insist on equal rights and duties for women. Said Iris Mitgang, head of the National Women's Political Caucus: "I feel tested to the fullest as a feminist when asked whether women should serve. It would be inconsistent to say that my daughter should not register if my son must. And every step of my background leads me to oppose the draft." Karen DeCrow, former president of the National Organization for Women, argued: "If men fight, women fight. But it is highly inappropriate to ask women to register and maybe be drafted to defend the Constitution when women are not, in fact, included in the Constitution. I think: no ERA, no draft." But other feminists, including Eleanor Smeal, the current president of NOW, refused to link the draft with passage of the ERA. Said she: "We are full citizens, and we should serve in every way." In a similar vein, the Atlanta chapter of NOW urged Democratic Senator Sam Nunn of Georgia to support "only that legislation which would require draft registration for persons of both sexes."

The feminists also object to the unequal treatment women receive in the military. Women are now barred from duties that would require them actually to shoot, but they can be sent into situations in which they could be shot at. For example, women can serve as crew members of supply helicopters, which could easily come under fire on the battlefield. The Administration has asked Congress to remove all statutory restrictions on assigning women and leave it up to the Pentagon. Out of chauvinism or chivalry, however, most Congressmen apparently oppose any possibility of women engaging in combat.

Carter's own views on the subject will be spelled out late this week, when he has promised to report to Congress on his plans for draft registration. Under existing statutes, he can order registration of young men, presumably between the ages of 18 and 26. But only Congress can appropriate the money--$10 million by the Administration's estimate--to crank up the registration machinery, and it would have to approve any White House request to register women. Such a request would set off one of the bitterest fights of the legislative session, and one that would surely spill over into both the presidential and congressional election campaigns.

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