University of Virginia Library

Nixon Orders Study To Fix
Loopholes In New Draft

The White House has ordered a study
of loopholes that could turn the new
draft lottery system into a giant chess
game with unmanageable pawns.

A White House source said the
National Security Council, Defense
Department, and Selective Service have
been asked to consider whether the
acknowledged loopholes in the system
"will be a real problem, and if so, what to
do about it."

The most obvious loophole allows a deferred
man, in some cases, to choose the year he is
exposed to the draft - presumably in a year
when his number is unlikely to come up - by
deliberately dropping his deferment in that
year.

Another flaw is the reverse case of a man
classified 1-A who seeks a deferment when it
looks as if his number is getting hot. If he gets
the deferment - and the local board may have
no choice if he qualifies - he leaves the draft
pool.

Local draft boards could, a Selective Service
aide said, prevent a man from jumping in and
out of 1-A at will by refusing somewhere along
the line to reconsider his classification.

The numbers remain the same. The Pentagon
estimates that it will have to obtain -
somehow - about 550,000 draft-eligible men in
1970.

The Pentagon expects 290,000 to enlist
voluntarily, leaving 260,000 to be drafted. If
the enlistments fall short, the size of the draft
must rise, for somehow they must add up to
550,000.

It is possible that a local board might have a
lopsided distribution of lottery numbers within
its own pool, perhaps having an inordinate
number of men with high draft numbers. This
would throw off all White House estimates.

The system is confused even more by the
uncertain number of men who will enlist. If a
large number of men with very low numbers
decide to enlist in order to choose their branch
of service, or men with high numbers who
would have enlisted now decide not to, the
ranks of eligibles could be filled with men with
high lottery numbers.