Photo by Halina Pawl
Chancellor favors postponement
Chancellor E. Laurence Chalmers Jr. addresses the College of Liberal Arts and Sciences faculty, urging postponement of a vote on the fate of ROTC. He said any action would be misinterpreted at this time. See below.
Local draft boards hold great power
(Editor's note; This is the second of two articles on local draft boards. The first appeared in the Tuesday Kansan.)
By MONROE DODD
Kansan Staff Writer
Each month, in county seat post offices across the United States, three to five men meet to decide the future of tens and hundreds of male citizens in their area. They are known collectively as "draft boards," charged with determining whether or not an individual shall be eligible for the draft and eventual service in the armed forces.
The boards hold enormous — in some cases, life and death power over their registrants.
Until 1967, board members' names were not released to the public, except through Selective Service headquarters in Washington. Today, only their names are available. Nothing concerning their addresses or backgrounds is disclosed by the board.
Yet often, especially in urban areas, the board members do not know the names or circumstances of the men with whom they deal. Conversely, the registrants would not recognize board members if they saw them.
Some board members are reluctant to discuss themselves or their duties, even anonymously.
Asked by the Kansan if he would agree
to an interview, one member of the Johnson County board replied, "No, I don't think there'd be anything to discuss."
"Each case is ruled on its merits, so we check each as it comes," he said. "Besides, we have no idea how things are going to work out because of this new lottery. The best idea is for each student to go to his home draft board."
However, the five members of a northeast Kansas board consented to an interview, as did a single member of another board in the same area.
The five-member board is located in a town of more than 23,000. The entire county which the board serves has a population of about 50,000.
Shortly after their 10 a.m. meeting, the board members and board clerk talked with the Kansan as a group.
The chairman, a 15-year veteran of the board, is a farmer and has never been a member of the armed forces.
"I was raised on a ranch in southern Kansas and had a farm deferment during World War II," he said, "but I'd a lot rather have been in the Army."
His closest relation now in the service is a daughter in the Women's Air Force. He was the youngest of the five board members and the only one not retired.
(Continued to page 16)
80th Year, No.63
The University of Kansas—Lawrence, Kansas Wednesday, Dec. 17, 1969
Vote on ROTC postponed
By TED ILIFF Kansan Staff Writer
The College of Liberal Arts and Sciences faculty voted Tuesday afternoon to postpone a final vote on the fate of ROTC credit at KU until next April.
The College's Educational Policies Committee requested the postponement to avoid conflict with studies on ROTC being conducted by the ROTC committee of the University Senate and a committee representing both the Board of Regents and the Legislative Council of the Kansas Legislature.
Frances Horowitz, professor of human development and family life, cited a concurrent resolution of the Kansas Senate while explaining the policy committee's request for a vote delay.
The resolution instructed the Board of Regents not to allow any changes in ROTC programs until the 1970 legislature had
heard the Legislative Council's report. She also mentioned the efforts of the University Senate's committee which is also studying ROTC.
"We ask that the vote be postponed until April in order to first see the report from the Senate ROTC committee. Furthermore, if the issue were to be voted on and approved, it may cause repressive legislative action toward KU, and if it were defeated, it may immobilize the efforts of the Senate committee," Mrs. Horowitz said.
"Passage of the measure could be interpreted as a challenge to the Kansas Legislature, even if an actual challenge did not emerge. Defeat could be misinterpreted as a lack of concern
Chancellor E. Laurence Chalmers Jr. spoke before the faculty to urge postponement. He said any action would be misinterpreted at this time.
about the need for curricular modifications in the ROTC programs at KU," Chalmer said.
Chalmers said he believed that very few people were opposed to changes which could improve ROTC programs, but "rational and appropriate action would be to develop such changes and withhold judgement about credits until these actions are concluded."
Max Sutton, associate professor of English, said failure to go ahead with the vote in April would give the impression the faculty was afraid of "outside pressure." He asked that the secretary of the College faculty mail the ballots at the end of the second week in April, regardless of whether or not the legislature had read the Legislature Council report and the University Senate had released its findings.
The request to postpone the vote passed 89 to 34.
Cutback to lower draft
WASHINGTON (UPI) — Defense Secretary Melvin R. Laird said Tuesday the latest Vietnam troop withdrawal ordered by President Nixon will lower the nation's need for draftees by 10 per cent next year, down to 225,-000 men.
He also told newsmen that Communist troops in South Vietnam are unable at present to begin a major, sustained offensive and that it will take about two months to determine whether
the recent substantial increase in infiltration means they are building up for one.
In any case, Laird said, the Communists won't be capable of launching a big offensive before next April 15, the deadline for withdrawal of an additional 50,-000 U.S. troops that was announced by the President Monday night.
The defense secretary said he and Gen. Earle G. Wheeler, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of
Staff, would visit Vietnam in early February—about the time Communist intentions should become evident — and that he would make "whatever recommendations are necessary to protect U.S. forces there."
Laird said nearly all the 50,000 troops leaving Vietnam would be subtracted from the total strength of the armed services, which previously had been set at 3,235,000 men as of July 1.
UDK News Roundup By United Press International
FBI hits Mafia
NEWARK, N.J. — One hundred FBI agents swept through the Newark area Tuesday and arrested 50 persons in a crackdown designed to smash Mafia-controlled rackets linked by government sources to allegedly corrupt public officials in New Jersey.
Five other persons named in two federal grand jury indictments were still at large but federal men were tracking them down. FBI Director J. Edgar Hoover called Tuesday's action "the largest series of federal gambling arrests ever conducted in this area."
Tax bill nearly finished
WASHINGTON—Congressional tax conferees started putting the finishing touches today on the last half of the most comprehensive tax reform bill in modern U.S. history.
Rep. Wilbur D. Mills, D-Ark., the House Senate conference chairman, told newsmen after a length 11-hour session Tuesday, "We're halfway through. We may be finished by Thursday night."
Mills said, however, the 14-man committee has not drafted the most controversial section of the 361-page document dealing with relief for virtually all classes of taxpayers.
Torrijos returns to power
PANAMA CITY—Loyal National Guard officers returned Brig. Gen. Omar Torrijos to power Tuesday and gave him a hero's welcome, a day after he was deposed by two subordinates while attending a horse race in Mexico.
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The 1960s in review
The editors of the Kansan review the 1960s and the year 1969. The events, the people and the places of the decade are placed in perspective in a special four-page section.
See page 7