Greeting: America and the Draft · Episode 9 of 12 · 21 min
The Machinery of Privilege: How Deferments Rigged the Vietnam Draft
Before the lottery, the Vietnam draft was a pyramid of escape hatches, and the boards deciding who died looked nothing like the men they drafted. The episode covers the deferment pyramid, the finding that Black Americans were about 1.3% of local board members in 1966, McNamara's Project 100,000, and the government's own 1967 indictment in the Marshall Commission report.
Who's who
- Lewis B. Hershey+4 more episodesSelective Service director and defender of local-board discretion
- Robert McNamaraDefense Secretary who launched Project 100,000
- Burke Marshall+1 more episodeChair of the National Advisory Commission on Selective Service
- Lyndon B. Johnson+7 more episodesPresident who created the Marshall Commission in 1966
- Christian G. AppyHistorian and author of Working-Class War
- Muhammad Ali+1 more episodeBoxer whose conscientious objector claim his Louisville board denied
Where it happens
- Alabama+2 more episodesAmong Deep South states with no Black draft board members in 1966
- Mississippi+4 more episodesAmong Deep South states with no Black draft board members in 1966
Timeline
- 1951Student deferment institutionalized, becoming the college-bound's escape route
- July 1966Johnson creates the National Advisory Commission on Selective Service
- October 1966Project 100,000 begins taking men with lowered entrance standards
- February 1967Marshall Commission delivers In Pursuit of Equity
- July 1967Congress passes the Military Selective Service Act, preserving student deferments and barring a lottery
- 1970Black board membership rises to roughly 6.6% under legal pressure
Still debated
Sources range from about 320,000 to 354,000 Project 100,000 entrants, and the claim of three times the death rate rests on limited data. That the war fell hardest on the working class is well supported, but the exact gap and how much came from deferments versus enlistment choices is debated.
← PreviousThe Cold War Draft: Hershey's Channeling MachineNext →Hell No: Draft Resistance and the Courts That Redefined Conscience
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