A Deceiving Lull In The Registration Battle

Even now, almost eight weeks after 3.6 million 19- and 20-year-old men surrendered their names, address and social security numbers to the Selective Service System (SSS), you cannot say for sure who won the initial skirmish over the issue of military registration. Both sides claim victory, but neither the government nor the leadership of the anti-registration forces expects to rest in the months ahead. Both camps are planning new assaults, priming fresh troops for the front lines. Cries of "We have not yet begun to fight" echo across the temporarily inactive battlefield.

When Jimmy Carter first trumpeted his registration plan last winter, he warned of an increasingly aggressive Soviet war machine and a disorganized all-volunteer American counterpart, one incapable of responding efficiently to the Communist threat. Despite this frightening description and the public's gradual shift toward a more bellicose outlook as problems in the Near East continued to smolder, no one was certain that America's youth would cooperate with Carter. The SSS announced its version of the outcome last week: more than 93 per cent of the nearly four million eligible men had registered, and more were expected to do so in the near future. SSS Director Bernard D. Rostker humbly declared a triumph, saying, "I am not unhappy."

"Not so fast!" shouted many of the youthful activists who struggled all summer to hinder Rostker and his overworked crew of name-collectors. "The Selective Service is lying," says David Affler, a spokesman for the Boston Alliance Against Registration and the Draft, and one of the many protesters who claim that the government presented faulty figures. He says Rostker's numbers do not account for such variables as recent demographic changes and fraudulent registration cards, submitted by Michael Mouse, Donald Duck and others. After suggests that a more accurate estimation of the response to registration is 75 per cent, a figure The Boston Globe published two weeks ago after conducting a survey of scattered post office districts containing 11 per cent of the national population.

But Rostker counters, "Our numbers are as hard as a rock. They have the anecdotes and the guesses. I have the cards and the numbers." Rostker, who claims that only a survey encompassing the entire country yields accurate registration statistics, gladly welcomed the General Accounting Office audit of his totals that Barry Lynn, head of the national Committee Against Registration and the Draft (CARD), proposed. The SSS chief adds that in an independent check of his own for phony signees, "We had a problem with fewer than one in every 1000 cards." He says that only 1.8 per cent of the registrants announced they were complying under protest.

While some opponents of registration chide Rostker for covering for his boss in the White House, organizers such as David Landau '72, an American Civil Liberities Union attorney and the deputy director of CARD, have chosen to concentrate on what the government's figures mean, and on the prospects of halting the process before it leads to its logical end: a military draft.

Landau points out that more than a quarter of a million young men signed up after the official two weeks had ended, and like them, many others carefully thought out their reasons for registering before heading for the post office. "We mounted a highly successful movement. Two years ago there was little thought about this. Now we have CARD, plus 400 anti-draft groups around the country. The movement is visible, and the connection between registration and the draft is visible," Landau says proudly. "We never insisted that people screw up their lives by committing a crime. We just wanted them to know about the facts and their options."

Although Landau takes credit for helping postpone the draft "for at least a year instead of two months," he still fears that Congress may eventually push for formal induction. Preemptive maneuvers include a National Anti-Draft Week (October 12-18), complete with teach-ins and lectures, and a national CARD convention in late February somewhere in the Midwest. The group will organize a march on Washington in the spring if the registration program survives.

And here is where Landau warms to his favority subject--the possibility that by early next summer the Supreme Court will have ended the registration process because it includes only men. In addition to the sexual discrimination case before the high court (which stems from a suit filed in Penn-sylvania nine years ago) the ACLU has taken the government to Federal District Court in Washington on an alleged violation of the Privacy Act. Landau explains that the SSS did not follow the specific procedures for "incorporation by reference" in its collection of registrants' social security numbers. Saying that the ACLU is very optimistic about both encounters, Landau adds, "No one will buy the erroneous assertion that the defense system will fall apart without registration," and that, particularly in the case before the Supreme Court, "The government's tone of hysteria will not help."

Anti-registration/draft organizers in the Boston area echo Landau's continued enthusiasm. Joe Gerson, a Cambridge representative of the American Friends Service Committee, a national group that has worked with CARD to educate young people about registration, says the Friends will concentrate on minorities, particularly working-class Blacks, in their drive to disseminate information on the issue. "The white middle class is usually the target, but they often already know what is going on," says Gerson, adding that he will also include high school students in his counseling sessions.

He emphasizes, however, that "the issue of the draft is hardly resolved--you don't just register for the fun of it. It would be rather naive to assume that this will not lead to something else." If a draft is proposed, Gerson says he believes it will be "eminently defeatable." "We have shown that there is resistance, and that people are thinking about the issue."

In the meantime, the government, and specifically the Department of Justice, has another problem to worry about: the more than 250,000 19- and 20-year olds who are officially guilty of a felony that boasts a maximum sentence of five years in prison and a $10,000 fine. Dean St. Dennis, a Justice Department spokesman, refuses to speculate as to how his men might round up so many loose mavericks, let alone what they would do with all of the young offenders if the law ever caught up with them. "We certainly have not developed any sort of big program (to track down non-registrants)," St. Dennis says, adding, "Voluntary compliance remains a highly cherished goal. Just because we contact someone who failed to register, that does not necessarily mean there will be a prosecution."

Rostker agrees heartily, adding that he hopes to continue signing up late-comers without the hassle of formal legal action. "We are in no hurry," he explains. "If there is someone out there who has not registered, we will go and get him." None of this personal courting will begin until after the last confirmation letter goes out in late November. At that time the SSS will urge those young men who did not receive a letter to sign up.

Presumably, hold-outs will be referred to the Justice Department. Bob Mills, a staff member of the Senate Appropriations Committee, insists that the confusion over Justice's enforcement responsibilities must be straightened out sooner rather than later. Legislation for future registration will require that the SSS explain to Congress just how it and the Justice Department plan to discipline those who signed up late, or who never signed up at all. "The implication is that there are a lot of felons out there, and a lot of people around here are wondering what will happen to them." Generally, though, Mills says, "There has not been much talk around here since July."

By the end of the year Rostker promises a new "media blitz" to pump up the permanent registration program he will launch in Januray. "Things have gone smoothly: we have come in at below our cost estimate (about $2 per person). We are certainly better prepared militarily," concludes Rostker.

All of this could, of course, change if someone other than Jimmy Carter were sitting in the Oval Office next year. Ronald Reagan and John Anderson have declared strong opposition to peace-time registration. The determined pro-and anti-registration warriors realize that in the space of a few months the entire framework of their confrontation may shift drastically, but they march on, certain that they are each serving the nation and that they will prevail over the opposition.