Students Will Not Be Drafted To Fill Bigger Army Quotas

Draft boards will have to call 19-year-olds as a result of the increase in the draft call announced yesterday by President Johnson, Students, however, are safe from induction for the foreseeable future, according to spokesmen for the Selective Service.

Col. Paul F. Feeney, deputy director of the Massachusetts Selective Service, emphasized yesterday that students will be among the last groups affected if there is any tightening of deferment policy.

Could Go On Forever

But such a tightening probably will not occur as a result of the doubling of draft calls announced yesterday by President Johnson. Col. Bernard T. Franck, a spokesman for the U.S. Selective Service in Washington, said yesterday that lowering the average national age of inductees from 21 to 19 should produce enough additional men to meet the gradual increase demanded by the President.

"I think we could go to 35,000 indefinitely," Franck said.

Massachusetts, which is currently drafting 19-year-olds, may not be affected at all by the step-up. Franck said the burden would be placed first on states that are not yet drafting men so young.

Married Men Endangered

If Massachusetts should be called upon to double its number of draftees, Feeney said that married men between the ages of 19 and 25 would probably be called to service with in two months. He said that president Kennedy's 1963 declaration deferring married men merely meant that "we won't take a man with a wife until the supply of single men is exhausted."

"If we have to double the number of men taken from Massachusetts, we'll exhaust the supply of single men at the end of two months." he said. Explaining that such an increase was "conceivable," he said that it was "highly unlikely in view of the national average age of 21 years."

Franck said that the call would be levied on the basis of "availables" rather than population. He explained that he does not know at the present time how fast the draft will be increased to 35,000. "We'll have to wait until we hear from the Secretary of Defense," he said, "but we can't increase the number until the facilities for processing men are increased."

New York is more typical of the national average than Massachusetts. The lowest age at which men are being drafted there is 21, Col. Paul Akat, New York City Director of Selective Service, said yesterday that his office would be able to meet the increase by lowering the age to 19 years.

One feature of college life certain to be altered by Johnson's decision is the leave-of-absence. Colleges traditionally do not offer men taking a year's leave protection from the draft. Students have been taking leaves only after making arrangements with local draft boards; the drafting of 19-year-olds may put a stop to leaves-of-absence altogether