removed, as the local protesting youth viewed their army positively as a vehicle to fight off a possible invasion by the Soviet Union. Framing the movement President Johnson spoke strongly against the draft-card protesters, saying in October 1967 that he wanted the "antidraft movement" investigated for Communist influences. Reporting on his reaction, The New York Times presented the protests as being against the draft rather than the war. Many commentators focused on draft resistance as an explanation rather than the more challenging war resistance: the main concern of the protesters. Political impact In 1968 when Richard Nixon was running for President, he promised to make the military into a purely volunteer force. In this he was following others who had suggested such a strategy, including Donald Rumsfeld of the Republican Wednesday Group the year before. At the beginning of his second term as President, Nixon stopped the draft after February 1973. The last man to be drafted entered the US Army on June 30, 1973. References External links Associated Press photograph of a December 4, 1967, protest in San Francisco, involving 88 draft cards burned Anti-war protests in the United States Protests against the Vietnam War Civil disobedience Conscription in Australia Counterculture of the 1960s United States in the Vietnam War 1960s in the United States 1970s in the United States 1960s in Australia 1970s in Australia Military history of Australia during the Vietnam War