Draft lottery (1969)
The Draft Lottery of 1969 was a significant event in the United States concerning military conscription during the Vietnam War. On December 1, 1969, the Selective Service System (SSS) held a draft lottery that determined which men born between 1944 and 1950 would be called to serve in the military for the following year. This lottery was the first of its kind since 1942 and marked a shift from the previous draft system, which prioritized older men. President Richard Nixon implemented this new system in response to criticisms that the existing draft disproportionately affected low-income and uneducated men, as college students had been able to defer service.
The lottery involved drawing capsules representing each birthdate, which were then assigned rankings for induction. This process was televised, drawing attention both for its randomness and the public's mixed perceptions of fairness. Despite the intention for a fair selection, the lottery faced criticism for alleged biases in the drawing process, with some arguing that it was not truly random. Additionally, the 1960s saw a growing anti-war movement, with many young people protesting against U.S. involvement in Vietnam, leading to significant numbers of draft evaders who either fled the country or faced imprisonment. Over one million individuals avoided the draft during this period, reflecting the era’s widespread dissent against the war.
Draft lottery (1969)
On December 1, 1969, the United States Selective Service System (SSS) held a draft lottery designating which men born between 1944 and 1950 (ages 18-26) would be called to service for the Vietnam War during the year 1970. The lottery process of drafting, or conscription, was the first since 1942. President Richard Nixon abandoned the established SSS draft system, which called to service the oldest men first using the lottery method. The SSS had come under fire for being biased against low-income and uneducated men. It had originally allowed men attending college to defer from entering service until after they had graduated. Many people believed this discriminated against underprivileged men who could not afford college and therefore could not obtain a deferment. Nixon sought to quell public outcry against the draft system by making service mandatory for all men born between these dates. Nixon used a new process in which each birth date was selected randomly and then assigned a ranking based on when it was chosen. Men were then inducted based on their birthday's ranking. Many men opposed to the war chose to dodge the draft and fled to another country. Those who remained were often imprisoned.
Overview: Establishment and Method
President Richard Nixon signed an executive order on November 6, 1969, effectively altering the drafting process of the Selective Service System (SSS). Eligible men could no longer apply for a deferral because they were attending college. Nixon ordered the SSS to establish a random selection sequence for drafting based on birthdays ranging from January 1, 1944, through December 31, 1950. A man's induction date was dependent upon the order in which the dates were selected. Since 1944 and 1948 were leap years, which meant that those years held 366 days instead of the normal 365, 366 blue plastic capsules containing numbers assigned to every birth date possible were placed in a clear container and mixed together. Capsules were chosen by hand on live television. The order in which each day was chosen designated a man's report date, with 1 being the first birth date to report to duty and 366 being the final birth date to report for duty. The first birthday drawn was September 14.
After all the dates were drawn, selectors then pulled capsules labeled with the 26 letters of the alphabet to decide the order in which men born on the same birth date would be called to duty. "J" was pulled first and assigned the number 1. The remaining letters were assigned a number accordingly. The final letter chosen was "V." This meant that those with last name starting with J would be inducted first in 1970, followed by the remaining letters in the order they were selected. A man with the last name Jacobson would be drafted before a man with the last name of Vanderbilt. The 1969 drawing only inducted birth dates up to number 195 throughout 1970, after which time a new draft lottery was issued. The SSS made some improvements to the system at this time after experiencing a number of complaints regarding the lottery methods.
Criticism
The draft lottery of 1969 was widely criticized for randomization failure. In January of 1970, a group of statisticians and politicians formally accused the system of not being truly random and called for a Congressional hearing and a new draw. White House officials denied these accusations, which claimed later birth dates were consistently drawn before earlier birth dates. Courts eventually ruled that the process was fair despite resounding statistical evidence showing that it was not. Judges rejected requests to redo the lottery that year. However, SSS officials used the data to modify the process in the following years to ensure total randomization.
The 1960s was also the beginning of the anti-Vietnam war movement. Many Americans opposed the Vietnam War and believed it was a mistake for the United States to have entered into such a conflict. Just two months before the draft lottery was held, millions of protestors marched outside the White House in opposition to continued war efforts in Vietnam. This gathering was known as the Peace Moratorium and was one of the largest demonstrations in US history, attracting more than two million participants. Days after Nixon signed the executive order for the lottery, protesters organized the March Against Death, which ran from November 13-15, 1969. In Despite Nixon's plan to gradually withdraw troops, the war continued with the support of the older generation of American voters. By the end of 1969, more than 45,000 American soldiers had died in Vietnam. Many young people were involved in the anti-war movement of the 1960s and early 1970s, including those who had been drafted into the war. There was a flux of anti-war draft evaders, who either refused to enter the service and went to prison, or simply fled the country to avoid deployment or imprisonment. According to the US government, more than one million people evaded the draft during the Vietnam War, though only about 200,000 were formally charged with draft law violation. Many draft dodgers fled to Canada and remained there for the rest of their lives. In 1974, President Gerald R. Ford granted conditional amnesty to those who had evaded the draft.
Bibliography
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