It is now clear that the 23-year-old Mr. Clinton, like many of his peers at that time, worked to obtain a draft deferment during the summer of that year, when he felt certain he was about to be called up for military service. Gov. Clinton has said he later dropped that deferment because he felt it was morally wrong to keep it while his friends died in combat. But in a letter he wrote at the time, he said he dropped the deferment to maintain his "political viability." And it appears that he didn't actually subject himself to the draft until it became clear that he had a reasonable chance of escaping induction altogether. Here's a closer look at the questions that are raised by his statements: Did Gov. Clinton ever intend to enroll in the Reserve Officer Training Corps program at the University of Arkansas, as he agreed to do at the time he received his deferment? Mr. Clinton never enrolled in either the ROTC or the University of Arkansas, making dubious the circumstances under which he received the deferment at such a critical time. What's more, in a letter to his ROTC recruiter, Mr. Clinton admitted, "I had no interest in the ROTC program itself" and concedes that he may have "deceived" the recruiter about his attitude. Mr. Clinton has said on several occasions recently that for a brief period in the summer of 1969, he did intend to join the ROTC and the University of Arkansas, but only after finishing the second year of his Rhodes scholarship at Oxford University in England. Col. Eugene Holmes, director of the ROTC program at the University of Arkansas, says it would have been improper for him to grant a deferment for Mr. Clinton if he had no intention of joining the ROTC program until a year later. When Mr. Clinton backed out of his agreement to join the ROTC, was his intention to subject himself to the draft? That's what he has said in his statements and in his letter. But Mr. Clinton didn't back out of the agreement until after a statement on Sept. 19, 1969, by President Nixon that made it clear that few new conscripts would be called until December, when a draft lottery system was to begin. Mr. Clinton has said he was unaware of any plans for a lottery system at the time he backed out of his ROTC agreement, but the president's comments were widely publicized. On the surface, Mr. Clinton's ROTC deferment, which lasted 2 1/2 months, enabled him to escape almost certain induction and instead put him into a lottery system where his chances of being called were smaller. Why did Mr. Clinton wait until Dec. 3, 1969, to write to Col. Holmes about his harsh views of the draft, the war and the ROTC? The letter provides no answer to that question. But it was written two days after the lottery numbers were announced. Mr. Clinton drew an extremely high number, 311, making it clear that his chances of ever being called into service were very small. After that, he may have felt freer to confess his feelings.
Last week the Wall Street Journal published an article on how Clinton avoided the Vietnam draft. The paper reported that she was drafted into service in 1968 and served for two years before being discharged. Graduate school deferments had ended. His draft board told him he could expect to be called in the fall of 1969; giving him extra consideration because he was a Rhodes Scholar. Clinton went back to Oxford. Later he found an ROTC program at the University of Arkansas, promising to enroll. He entered Yale. Near his induction date, he ended his deferment and was placed in the draft lottery; a high number ensured his exclusion.