I am sorry to be so long in writing. I know I promised to let you
hear from me at least once a month, and from now on you will, but
I have had to have some time to think about this first letter. Almost
daily since my return to England I have thought about writing,
about what I want to and ought to say.
First, I want to thank you, not just for saving me from the draft, but
for being so kind and decent to me last summer, when I was as
low as I have ever been. One thing which made the bond we
struck in good faith somewhat palatable to me was my high
regard for you personally. In retrospect, it seems that the
admiration might not have been mutual had you known a little
more about me, about my political beliefs and activities. At least
you might have thought me more fit for the draft than for ROTC.
Let me try to explain. As you know, I worked for two years in a
very minor position on the Senate Foreign Relations Committee. I
did it for the experience and the salary but also for the opportunity,
however small, of working every day against a war I opposed and
despised with a depth of feeling I had reserved solely for racism
in America before Vietnam. I did not take the matter lightly but
studied it carefully, and there was a time when not many people
had more information about Vietnam at hand than I did. I have
written and spoken and marched against the war. One of the
national organizers of the Vietnam Moratorium is a close friend of
mine, After I left Arkansas last summer, I went to Washington to
work in the national headquarters of the Moratorium, then to
England to organize the Americans for the demonstrations Oct.
15 and Nov. 16.
Interlocked with the war is the draft issue, which I did not begin to
consider separately until early 1968. For a law seminar
Georgetown I wrote a paper on the legal arguments for and
against allowing, within the Selective Service System, the
classification of selective conscientious objection, for those
opposed to participation in a particular war, not simply to
"participation in war in any form."
From my work I came to believe that the draft system itself is
illegitimate. No government really rooted in limited, parliamentary
democracy should have the power to make its citizens fight and
kill and die in a war they may oppose, a war which even possibly
may be wrong, a war which, in any case, does not involve
immediately the peace and freedom of the nation.
The draft was justified in World War II because the life of the
people collectively was at stake. Individuals had to fight, if the
nation was to survive, for the lives of their countrymen and their
way of life. Vietnam is no such case. Nor was Korea an example
where, in my opinion, certain military action was justified but the
draft was not, for the reasons stated above.
Because of my opposition to the draft and the war, I am in great
sympathy with those who are not willing to fight, kill, and maybe
die for their country (i.e. the particular policy of a particular
government) right or wrong. Two of my friends at Oxford are
conscientious objectors. I wrote a letter of recommendation for
one of them to his Mississippi draft board, a letter which I am
more proud of than anything else I wrote at Oxford last year. One
of my roommates is a draft resister who is possibly under
indictment and may never be able to go home again. He is one of
the bravest, best men I know. That he is considered a criminal is
an obscenity.
The decision not to be a resister and the related subsequent
decisions were the most difficult of my life. I decided to accept the
draft in spite of my beliefs for one reason: to maintain my political
viability within the system. For years I have worked to prepare
myself for a political life characterized by both practical political
ability and concern for rapid social progress. It is a life I still feel
compelled to try to lead. I do not think our system of government is
by definition corrupt, however dangerous and inadequate it has
been in recent years. (The society may be corrupt, but that is not
the same thing, and if that is true we are all finished anyway.)
When the draft came, despite political convictions, I was having a
hard time facing the prospect of fighting a war I had been fighting
against, and that is why I contacted you. ROTC was the one way
left in which I could possibly, but not positively, avoid both
Vietnam and resistance. Going on with my education, even
coming back to England, played no part in my decision to join
ROTC. I am back here, and would have been at Arkansas Law
School because there is nothing else I can do. In fact, I would like
to have been able to take a year out perhaps to teach in a small
college or work on some community action project and in the
process to decide whether to attend law school or graduate
school and how to begin putting what I have learned to use.
But the particulars of my personal life are not nearly as important
to me as the principles involved. After I signed the ROTC letter of
intent I began to wonder whether the compromise I had made with
myself was not more objectionable than the draft would have
been, because I had no interest in the ROTC program in itself and
all I seemed to have done was to protect myself from physical
harm. Also, I began to think I had deceived you, not by lies
because there were none but by failing to tell you all the things I'm
writing now. I doubt that I had the mental coherence to articulate
them then.
At that time, after we had made our agreement and you had sent
my 1-D deferment to my draft board, the anguish and loss of my
self-regard and self confidence really set in. I hardly slept for
weeks and kept going by eating compulsively and reading until
exhaustion brought sleep. Finally, on Sept. 12 I stayed up all night
writing a letter to the chairman of my draft board, saying basically
what is in the preceding paragraph, thanking him for trying to help
in a case where he really couldn't, and stating that I couldn't do the
ROTC after all and would he please draft me as soon as
possible.
I never mailed the letter, but I did carry it on me every day until I
got on the plane to return to England. I didn't mail the letter
because I didn't see, in the end, how my going in the army and
maybe going to Vietnam would achieve anything except a feeling
that I had punished myself and gotten what I deserved. So I came
back to England to try to make something of this second year of
my Rhodes scholarship.
And that is where I am now, writing to you because you have been
good to me and have a right to know what I think and feel. I am
writing too in the hope that my telling this one story will help you to
understand more clearly how so many fine people have come to
find themselves still loving their country but loathing the military, to
which you and other good men have devoted years, lifetimes, of
the best service you could give. To many of us, it is no longer
clear what is service and what is disservice, or if it is clear, the
conclusion is likely to be illegal.
Forgive the length of this letter. There was much to say. There is
still a lot to be said, but it can wait. Please say hello to Col. Jones
for me.
Merry Christmas.
Sincerely,
Bill Clinton |
