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Remarks to the State Directors of the Selective Service System

May 03, 1967

General Hershey, Directors of the Selective Service System, ladies and gentlemen:

I am pleased that I have an opportunity, although I have been somewhat delayed, to discuss with you some of the steps that we are taking together to try to improve our Selective Service System in this country.

Selective Service, as you know, has been an essential part of our Nation's security system and a part of the system of security for the free world. It has been that for more than a generation. And it still is, as we meet here in the Rose Garden this afternoon.

The system was founded on the conviction that qualified men should share equally the responsibilities of service.

That principle of fairness must prevail, particularly at a time when only some are called upon--as they are today--to fight to defend our freedom.

Recent studies--particularly the one headed by Mr. Burke Marshall--have spotlighted some of the problems in that system. I reviewed all of these reports very carefully before I sent my message to the Congress, where the question is now being considered by the Members of the House and Senate and explored in depth.

From those deliberations--and from the discussions taking place across the entire country--I believe that we will come to understand what we must do finally to correct the inequities in this system.

But even as we await the results of the debates now taking place in the Congress, we have moved, since my message to Congress 2 months ago, to make several improvements. Those improvements came from the results of our experience, our studies, our consultations with the chairmen of the appropriate committees in the Congress, and from the recommendations that came from throughout the Nation.

--The Marshall commission pointed out that local boards are not always fully representative of the communities they serve. This is not an area over which we have direct control. But I am very pleased that you gentlemen and your distinguished leader, General Hershey, working with the Governors of your States, have already been able to make some progress in this area. I am glad to see that this vital subject is on your agenda during your working sessions here this week. Every principle of fairness, every tenet of our democratic faith, requires us to make our institutions representative of the people with whom they deal.

--We are also giving the registrant better information about the system. I am told that a new booklet will be given to each man at registration, telling him of his rights under the system.

--Every young man who wants a hearing will be heard. He will be given more help and more time to appeal his case. Steps are now underway to ensure that advisers and appeal agents are always available.

--I am also signing an Executive order which will extend from 10 to 30 days the period during which a man can appeal his classification. Other actions will also follow:

--General Hershey is now working with the Secretary of Defense to develop a fair and impartial random system of selection, in which all eligible and qualified men will have an equal chance of being selected for military duty. We expect this FAIR system to become fully operational before January 1, 1969.

--Also under consideration is a plan to terminate future student deferments for postgraduate study, except for those men pursuing medical or dental courses.

--For too many men, the "pyramiding" of postgraduate deferments have led to exemption from military duty.

--We are also preparing a plan to reverse the present order of call. All the studies have found that the country--and the draftees themselves--will be better served if men are inducted at age 19, rather than in the "oldest first" order of the past.

As you know, the Marshall commission proposed that the whole Selective Service System be restructured. In my judgment this proposal needed further study and I have organized a task force to review it in terms of:

--its cost;

--in terms of the methods of implementation;

--and finally, effectiveness in the light of the changes we are already making in the system.

I believe then that we are well on our way to modernizing our Selective Service and that you gentlemen, as well as our people, are going to be pleased with the result.

We thank you very much for coming here today. We welcome you to the White House Rose Garden. I hope you will continue to serve as diligently and devotedly in the future as you have throughout the years of the past. Yours is a most important role in providing all of us with an effective national service, and an effective national defense.

You are performing that role well and I thank you and I congratulate you.

Note: The President spoke at 6:05 p.m. in the Rose Garden at the White House. In his opening words he referred to Lt. Gen. Lewis B. Hershey, Director of the Selective Service System. Later he referred to Burke Marshall, formerly Chairman of the National Advisory Commission on Selective Service.

For a statement by the President upon establishing the Commission, see 1966 volume, this series, Book II, Item 315. Its report is entitled "In Pursuit of Equity: Who Serves When Not All Serve" (Government Printing Office, 1967, 219 pp.).

On the same day the President issued Executive Order 11350 "Amending the Selective Service Regulations" (3 Weekly Comp. Pres. Docs., p. 699; 32 F.R. 6961; 3 CFR, 1967 Comp., p. 281).

Lyndon B. Johnson, Remarks to the State Directors of the Selective Service System Online by Gerhard Peters and John T. Woolley, The American Presidency Project https://www.presidency.ucsb.edu/node/237431

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