Dear Editor

...In the late 18th century the French Minister of State, Louis Fouchet, said of an ill-fated policy: "It was worse than a crime...

...And here we are in a war where some young men are drafted and propagandized, while the rest are intimidated by the draft's threat...

...In fact, the danger exists that Fascist elements try to infiltrate and propagandize professional and volunteer forces...

...But today professionals are the heart of the Army...

...The only policy of the otherwise revered President Roosevelt for which he was never forgiven in Western Europe, Latin America, and among liberals and Socialists here was his fatal involvement by non-involvement in that direct precursor to that very avoidable, harrowing World War II...

...He makes three points: 1) that a volunteer army would be unjust to the "socially dispossessed" minority groups...

...But I am not sure about the future, for the present generation of political leadership, forgetting our nation's traditional moral antipathy toward conscription and ignoring the practical case for its gradual abolition now, seems determined to make the draft a permanent institution in America...

...Yonni>xtownf Ohio Dr...

...Chevy Chase, Md...

...Before supporting a program which would tend to increase men's enthusiasm for military action, we should consider whether this effect is desirable...

...DEAR EDITOR PROFESSIONAL ARMY Through all our peacetime history and a couple of wars before 1940, America had a professional military that posed none of the threats Gus Tyler cites in his article, "Dangers of a Professional Army" (NL, April 24...

...Would Tyler extend his own argument to suggest conscription to supply garbage men—another enslavement of the poor...

...This tendency to concentrate strictly on the military aspects of Communism is already very strong in America, and seems to be at the root of most of the country's difficulties in Vietnam today...

...Even aside from the possibility that the Armed Forces could deliberately indoctrinate their young recruits with a particular political ideology, military indoctrination programs have an unavoidable tendency to encourage the idea that international relations should be thought of primarily in terms of military force...

...Some readers may get a little confused because he also uses the term "volunteer army," which generally denotes non-professional forces consisting of volunteers, such as the National Guard...

...Tyler states that "the debate over a volunteer army is not new," that the Marxists in Europe were concerned about it 50 years ago...

...Perhaps so, but it would seem that a better solution to this problem than universal enslavement would be the elimination of poverty...

...Tyler thinks that "ending the draft eliminates legal compulsion to enter the service, but does not eliminate circumstantial compulsion to do so...

...He continues: ". . . to grant exemption from the military (to Peace Corps or Teacher Corps workers) is to discriminate against the underprivileged" since "the better educated and ipso facto the better-to-do" would assume these tasks...

...it is simply a fact of life...

...Power corrupts—a shadow of a semblance of power corrupts absolutely...

...His, indeed, is a very curious sense of "danger...

...But this equality is also impossible...

...This line of reasoning would also lead to the conclusion that an army based on voluntary enlistment, if it is practicable, would be more desirable than one based upon conscription...

...The situation would remain the same, not because "two thirds of those inducted in any one year are volunteers," but because the Army is now run by its professional soldiers...

...But let us become more timely...

...Elimination of the draft, however, would at least force the military machine to compete with the rest of the economy for the time of the men it requires...

...Claudia Morrison Yotingstown University Although Gus Tyler apparently denies it, a volunteer army would not change the current professional character of the present military establishment...

...But his warning applies, of course, to both types...

...I daresay that for each Negro who volunteered there would be at least two whites with an equal incentive to enlist...

...I could not decipher his reply...

...Moreover, Schlesinger, Reinhold Niebuhr, Norman Thomas and others emphasize the essential "civil war" character of the conflict to sustain their opposition to our policy...

...This is not hostility to the underprivileged...

...Tyler is worried that a volunteer army "would place civilian control over the military establishment in serious jeopardy...

...that the world policeman role is not a valid one...

...ending such "compulsion" is impossible unless everyone is precisely equal economically and socially...

...Emphasizing this possibility to the young men inevitably leaves them receptive to the idea that America is surrounded by enemies who are planning aggression, and thus predisposes them to accept the proposals of those who urge a more aggressive defense program, up to the point of preventive war...

...but if those persons are correct who argue that our foreign policy is already based in too large a measure upon the strength of our armed forces, then we should be concerned about the possible role of military training in forming the opinions of future generations...

...This is the very argument which the supporters of a voluntary army are making...

...Boston, Mass, Russell J. Abbott Among those who spend time devising elaborate new reasons for maintaining conscription, Gus Tyler must surely occupy an honored place...

...Professor Sacks' appositioning of quotes from Schlesinger's Thousand Days and the screed under review demonstrates that Schlesinger writing of a period when he was in the Administration was not the same intellectual he is out of it...

...3. Why a volunteer army would be stronger than the present one and less subject to civilian control escapes me...

...But even in the Army, those who are better educated will naturally get the more important and less dangerous positions...

...The undersigned was associated with Niebuhr and Thomas—in the 1930s—in overt and covert intervention in the Spanish Civil War...

...therefore, its influence would be strengthened by the adoption of these two proposals, for together they would lower the average age at which men enter the Armed Forces...

...David H. Dunlap VIETNAM I. Milton Sacks" review of Arthur Schles-inger's polemic on Vietnam, The Bitter Heritage, ranks with the London Economist's review of same book as a devastating detraction from the now impaired reputation of the historian as an "instant" head-of-state...

...My brother Sam, a Socialist writer, was almost executed by his Stalinist captors during that indisputable "civil war...

...It has been claimed that modern methods of training and of keeping up morale have raised the proportion of men who fire their weapons during combat from 40 per cent in World War II to 80 per cent in Vietnam...

...we should be satisfied with legal equality, which is eminently possible...

...In addition, professional forces develop a natural inclination toward the rule by force and therewith an affinity to Fascism...

...If there were not sufficient volunteers to preserve it, it is questionable whether the people feel it is worth preserving...

...In those few cases where there is a basis for comparison, it appears that nations which rely on voluntary enlistment are less likely than others to be troubled by military intervention in their political affairs (e.g., Uruguay and its neighbors Brazil and Argentina...

...New York City Murray Baron 35...

...Springfield, Mo...

...It is ironic that the same liberals who consider America's present military policies too aggressive, at least in Asia, have been among the most vigorous proponents of plans to draft 19-year-olds first and end student deferments...

...Tyler sarcastically denounces voluntarism advocates by describing how in World War II America had to choose between a system of "involuntary 'servitude' under Roosevelt and 'voluntary' slavery under Hitler...

...one who attacked features which inhere in the present system as consequences of a particular change would be humiliated...

...If these training and morale-building techniques are so effective, it seems unwise to assume that their effects will wear off as soon as the young men leave the service...

...It seems reasonable to assume that military instruction would be of greatest importance in shaping men's intellectual character when given at an early age...

...Nor can Tyler conceive a solution to the "inequality" which is inherent in any system of conscription...

...Is it not possible that this kind of instruction plays an important role in shaping men's mature political convictions...

...Bruce K. Chapman Author, "The Wrong Man in Uniform" I have read Gus Tyler's article with great interest, and I am glad he had the courage to speak up on the dangers of a professional army...

...It was a blunder...

...Again Tyler dismisses the correct answer on very flimsy grounds...

...If we examine the backgrounds of notable men in the past who have advocated militaristic policies, we find that their convictions often arose from the emotional characteristics which developed during their early years...

...If I am correct in suggesting that this kind of psychological molding may be undesirable, it would seem better to minimize its effects by permitting those men who wish to do so to perform their military service at a more mature age, when their attitudes have already been largely formed...

...When enough people feel that the country is so threatened that it must take the drastic step of truly universal conscription, when the country feels that its only possibility of survival is a self-imposed military dictatorship, then the draft is justifiable...

...Conversely, the morale and discipline of soldiers would be impaired if they had misgivings over the usefulness or rightness of war, and military instruction programs must therefore be designed to portray warfare in a favorable light, as a necessary and honorable pursuit...

...2. It is no doubt true that a volunteer army could not raise the "needed" manpower to support our present foreign policy of acting as the world's policeman...

...There would be widespread disagreement as to whether Americans generally tend to consent too quickly to the use of military force as an instrument of national policy, or are more inclined to err in the opposite direction...

...But it does not seem too difficult to distinguish between forms of compulsion which directly involve a man's time—and perhaps his life—and those involving only his money...

...It is because of the ability of the services to mold the outlook of their recruits, incidentally, that it is wrong to look upon conscription as a safeguard against the power of the military elite...

...We are now watching the aftermath of a military coup in Greece, and like coups in most industrial and semi-industrial nations professional generals led a conscript army in seizing power...

...The geopolitical map of non-Chinese Asia today, as compared to pre-February 1965, is remarkably reshaped—a domino theory vindicated in reverse, directly or indirectly consequent to our Vietnam resistance...

...This seems to confuse a symptom (entering the armed services) with a cause (racial discrimination in jobs, education, etc...

...Is a draft ever justifiable...

...By a curious coincidence, the recent events in Greece (where I happened to be when your article was published) came just in time to lend additional force to Tyler's argument...

...Equally tenuous is Tyler's conviction that a volunteer army would be "overwhelmingly Negro...

...The difference is that under the present system, they have an unlimited pool of manpower at their disposal...

...In a recent debate with my former comrade, Norman Thomas, I recounted to the audience our combined efforts during the intervention in that civil war—and asked him to reconcile that activity with his current position against intervention in a spurious "civil war" in Vietnam...

...It was lethal intervention by non-intervention which permitted Franco and the intervenors Hitler and Mussolini to consummate the strangulation of Loyalist Spain...

...And wasn't it Hitler who remarked that one advantage of totalitarian states is their ability to force their enemies to adopt their methods...

...The story was the same in Argentina, and while there are a few minor counter-examples, mainly in Africa, it is plain that conscription is still no safeguard against militarism and actually may be its agent...

...We already have a professional army—one in which the decisions are made by professionals, not draftees...

...Is an insubordinate military establishment, then, a product of forbidding conscription, or rather the mere nature of military professionalism...

...New York City Frederick M. Stern Author, "The Citizen Army" In their articles on military conscription, both Lawrence Grauman, Jr...

...and as long as we maintain a permanent military, it will continue to be run by its professionals...

...2) that it could not recruit the "needed" manpower...

...Proponents of the plan to take 19-yearolds first tell us that men of this age are preferred by the services because they are more pliable in character and can be more easily molded to the specifications of the services...

...This could be done either by freely granting temporary deferments to undergraduate college students and other men in vocational training programs, or by permitting all men to choose for themselves the age at which they fulfill their military obligation...

...This unavoidably increases the willingness of the young men to support the use of military force under any circumstances...

...Tyler claims that a volunteer army would amount to an enslavement of the poor...

...If the latter is true, then military training is probably desirable...

...and 3) that a professional army would not be subject to civilian control...

...Up-dating this acerbic observation may provide some explanation for the frenetic character of the attack on President Johnson's Vietnam policy by Schles-inger and his allies...

...The question of civilian control is not answered by whether the Army is volunteer or conscript...

...I quoted from statements of that far-off period 30 years ago imploring President Roosevelt not to invoke the Neutrality Act which barred assistance to the stricken Republican government—which were all to no avail...

...Robert Banville I would like to comment on Gus Tyler's thoroughly fallacious article on the volunteer army...

...The answer to these three arguments follow: Continued on next page DEAR EDITOR I Continued 1. Because poor people—black or white?would hypothetically enlist in droves in a volunteer army, it does not follow that this would perpetuate their being "socially dispossessed" as a class...

...While problems still abound, precious time was gained for the threatened states of the area...

...if it should be, there would be enough men to fight to preserve their society without conscription...

...He hints at Universal Military Training but is unwilling to openly propose or defend it...

...Doesn't Tyler know that Hitler re-introduced conscription in Germany long before we were even thinking about it...

...Quite correctly, Tyler notes that "any form of legalized social compulsion is a form of greater or lesser servitude...

...and where for the first time in our history, the general in charge of our Armies in the field has to come back home to do a political selling job on Congress and the entire nation...

...I hope Tyler finds the distinction one worth making...

...Our Vietnam policy is worse than a crime...

...Tyler believes that eliminating the draft would "place civilian control over the military establishment in serious jeopardy" because all soldiers would then be professional soldiers...

...Moreover, from this standpoint it would be an advantage rather than a drawback to have most of the recruits drawn from the lower classes, for military service would then no longer be a factor in shaping the attitudes of men in the higher classes, which provide the majority of the political leaders and policy-makers...

...The manpower needed to repel a direct attack on the U.S., in this age of nuclear weapons and the deterrent power these weapons exercise against such a threat, could certainly be met by volunteers...

...But since 90 per cent of the population is white...

...where an effort conceived "to win the hearts and minds" of the Vietnamese people is now almost entirely a military operation (97 percent of our financial commitment...

...It used to be our friend too...

...That device later helped Napoleon militarize the mentality of his countrymen and then overrun the Continent...

...Of course, neither does the present system, nor can any other...

...A college debater who failed to present an alternative would be beaten...

...Tyler seems to imply that by providing an occupation where the poor could make money, we would be doing them, as a class, an "injustice...

...The main safeguard against the power of the military establishment lies in the attitude of the people, and their willingness or unwillingness to accept military rule...

...Conversely, the professional spirit of military acquiescence in the authority of civilians, which is the tradition of Britain, for example, or Canada, is democracy's true friend...

...If Negroes exclusively occupied the bottom 11 per cent of the economic totem pole, his argument might have some merit...

...Prospects for the Draft" NL, March 27) and Gus Tyler overlook one important factor, the effect of military training upon the attitudes of the individuals involved...

...but well-disciplined soldiers will obey the commands of their officers, whether they are conscripts or professionals...

...conscripts remain only the mandatory two years...

...This country has never been attacked by a foreign power in this century...

...I can think of no attempted coup which failed primarily because conscripted soldiers refused to obey their professional officers...

...Many men whose outlook and opinions have been formed largely in the armed services tend inevitably to think of the challenge of Communism strictly as a matter of military action, to the exclusion of economic, social and political factors...

...and I hope it still is...

...The recruit is carefully taught that it is important for a nation to be ready to meet any threat of foreign military aggression, with special reference to the current problem of the Communist bloc, but other aspects of foreign relations are naturally not given much attention in his education...

...Seattle, Wash...

...that is a matter of Constitutional guarantee...

...It is probably a more important factor now than it once was, for the Armed Forces have devoted increasing amounts of attention in recent years to the psychological conditioning of their recruits...

...It occurs to me 1) they might more profitably have worried about the conscript army of Germany, and 2) that the "debate" actually is much older than Tyler appears to know, since modern conscription was one of the unwittingly totalitarian devices of Jacobin France...

...A professional army relies heavily on re-enlistment, and therefore does not require that as many different individuals undergo military training...

...Moreover, to persuade young recruits that they must take their training seriously even when there is no war in sight, it is necessary to convince them that there is always danger of an enemy attack which would require them to use their combat skills...

...One cannot have an effective army without obedient and well-disciplined soldiers...

...It is a success," might well be the unexpressed frustration...

...The alienated personality Tyler pegs as a volunteer soldier would volunter even now...