Vinson Against Johnson On Draft Law Extension

Carl Vinson, Chairman of the House Committee on Armed Services, will not support the three-year extension of the present draft law urged by Defense Secretary Louis Johnson, he disclosed in a recent telegram to the CRIMSON.

A United Press story revealed yesterday that Johnson recently told President Truman a three-year addition to the draft is "essential" to national security. Vinson, in a telegram received earlier this month, expressed confidence that Congress would not extend the law.

"I Cannot Support . . ."

"In view of the insistence of the Administration upon the steady decline in the strength of the Armed Forces despite Congressional authorization and appropriations," the Democratic Representative said, "and in the absence of any serious international crisis comparable to that existing in March 1948, I have concluded that I cannot support an extension of the draft law."

The present law, passed in 1948, expires on June 24. Johnson wants it extended to June 30, 1953 and says that Secretary of State Dean Acheson, the National Security Resources Board, the Joint Chiefs of Staff, and the three branches of the armed forces all favor such an extension.

No Surprise

The request comes as no surprise. Officials in Washington last summer revealed to the CRIMSON that "the military will certainly ask for an extension . . . despite the facts that the Navy has not used the draft for three years, that the Air Force and the Marine Corps both have long waiting lists, and that the Army took less than 30,000 draftees . . . then found it didn't need any more.

The military forces want a standing Selective Service system even though the draft itself may be dead, so that they will be able to draft people quickly should a new crisis arise. Johnson said that "if the draft machinery is allowed to stop it would take four months to reactivate it in case of emergency."

He promised that the extension would not be used except "in the event of serious personnel shortages and the failure of other measures of recruiting."

Last summer House and Senate armed services committees expressed confidence that the extension would be granted. Vinson's telegram and the New York on the oath are "prosecution and punishment under the appropriate laws of the United States."

Included in the oath is the so-called "stool-pigeon clause," which commands the Navy man to name all other persons, Navy or non-Navy, whom he remembers seeing at any activity of the "subversive" group.

Representatives at Saturday's gathering in Phillips Brooks House were David M. Heer '50 and C. William Chastain, III '51 of the Liberal Union, Lawrence B. Holland and John O. McCormick, both teaching follows representing the Teachers' Union, Roy F. Gootenberg '49 IPA, of the AVC, Irwin Gostin 21, of the Lawyers' Guild, and Max Bluestone 20 of the YPII.

These men will seek support from several other groups and meet again on Saturday, January 14.

The Navy served notice Thursday that it would not change the wording of the "stool pigeon clause" but would urge its broadest possible application