Don't Rock The Boat

DON'T ROCK THE BOAT

Alaskan Senator Mike Gravel said last week that he believes the Nixon Administration is cooperating in delaying the passage of the Selective Service Act until after the South Vietnamese elections scheduled for October.

Senator Gravel said that he was convinced the President does not want the draft bill voted on until after the Vietnamese election. Gravel said the Nixon Administration was supporting the delay in an effort to prevent the anti-war Mansfield Amendment from hurting the election chances of South Vietnam president Thieu.

The Selective Service bill is currently bogged down in a conference committee between members of the Senate and the House. The Senate members are arguing that the Mansfield Amendment--which calls for withdrawal of all American troops from Indochina within nine months--be included as part of the final draft bill. House members, however, are asking that it be deleted. And until the two sides can reach a compromise, no young men can be drafted into service.

Senator Gravel predicted that there would be no draft bill for at least another two months. Gravel said that the Nixon Administration "does not want anything to rock the boat in the Vietnam elections"--and would therefore prefer to have the draft bill delayed.

So there's still no legal basis for the draft to operate on as we go to press Wednesday the 21st. People should visit their boards and demand their files back, don't bother answering any letters or cooperate with the draft in any way in the meantime, because there's nothing they can do about it. They're bound to get this law together again, but until they do all those registered with the draft should do everything they can to overwhelm it with paper work and confuse things as much as possible, so that when the draft does start eating people up again it'll be that much harder for them to get it together.

Even so, draft director Curtis Tarr and his flunkies are going ahead with their evil schemes. The new draft lottery, operating under a new method of selection, will take place on August 5th, for people who turned 19 since the last one.