Government Quiet on Tactics To Find Registration Evaders

Spokesmen for the Selective Service System (SSS) yesterday renewed their refusal to explain how they will identify and apprehend the approximately 250,000 19- and 20-year-old men who did not register for the draft last summer.

"We will have nothing to say until November, when the 90-day grace period ends," Bernard D. Rostker, director of the SSS, said yesterday adding that "We are serious about enforcing the law."

Marjorie Davidson, an SSS public information officer, said yesterday that the SSS "will use high school graduation lists and drivers' licenses to identify non-registrants." She added that the SSS has not considered enlisting the aid of colleges and universities to complete the registration process.

"Our methods would have to vary from state to state, depending on local jurisdiction," Davidson said, declining to explain the system's plans in more detail.

Rostker refused to comment on "any rumors on how we will identify non-registrants."

Daniel Steiner '54, general counsel to the University, confirmed yesterday that Harvard has not received any request for a list of students from the SSS.

"We would have to look at such a request carefully," Steiner said, adding that, "We would not respond to it automatically one way or the other."

The SSS recently announced that 94 per cent of those eligible had registered, a 1 per cent increase since Rostker announced initial registration statistics in mid September.

The Department of Justice will ultimately be responsible for prosecuting registration dodgers, but it has not yet disclosed when or how this process will take place.

The maximum penalty for avoiding registration is a five-year prison term and a $10,000 fine