Defense Spokesmen to Go Before Senate Committee

Department of Defense spokesmen will go before the full Senate Armed Services Committee today to explain their stand on the subcommittee's amendments to the Administration draft bill.

Deputy Secretary of Defense Robert A. Lovett told the CRIMSON last night that Department officials were still going over the report of the sub-group, but would have their minds made up by this morning when they expected to be called to the Hill.

The Department's biggest worry has been that the Senators would tie its hands by the amendment forcing the Department to take all "available men" in the 19 to 26 bracket. Both Secretary Marshall and Assistant Secretary Anna Rosenberg had asked Congress to allow drafting of 18-year-olds and not to limit Defense authority in handling men in the 19 to 26 age group.

19-Year-Olds First

One member of the subcommittee at the same time told the CRIMSON that the provision that all "available" men over 19 go before the 18-year-olds was intended only to make certain that the higher age group had been completely milked first. It might, however, stop the Department from granting deferments as it pleased. Thus, for example, even if it wished, the Department might not be able to let men who have nearly finished college complete school before being drafted.

The subcommittee hoped, this same member stated, to get 100,000 men now classified 4-F, 200,000 men with one dependent (a wife), and 200,000 students, before having to dig into the lower age area. There are, he said, over 500,000 men in college right now, but many of these are veterans or have dependents or essential posts.

Although there may be some re-writing in the full committee, especially after this week's testimony, the bill as amended is expected to reach the Senate floor in ten days. There will be a strong fight against it there, proponents stated last night; thousands of letters from those opposed to the 18-year-old draft have piled high in the offices of many members of the Armed Services Committee already, Senator Leverett Saltonstall (R-Mass.) said yesterday.