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Difference No. 22

The Senate amendment contained language providing that if calls for induction are discontinued because the Armed Forces achieve an all volunteer basis, the Selective Service System shall be maintained as an active standby organization with personnel adequate to reinstitute immediately the full operation of the system, including military Reservists who are trained to operate such system and who can be ordered to active duty for such purpose in the event of a national emergency.

The House bill contained no similar provision.

The House accepts the Senate language.

Difference No. 23

The Senate amendment contained language requiring henceforth that appointment of Reserve officers of the rank of major/lieutenant commander and above be subject to the advice and consent of the Senate.

The House bill contained no similar provision.

The House conferees agreed to accept the Senate language with an amendment to apply the requirement uniformly to regular and Reserve officers and to limit the requirement to officers in the grade of lieutenant colonel/commander and above.

In substance, as a result of the amendment, temporary promotions in the grade of lieutenant colonel and above for both Regular and Reserve officers will be subject to Senate confirmation. Presently only those in the grade of general officer require this action..

In addition, permanent Reserve appointments in the grade of lieutenant colonel and colonel will be subject to Senate confirmation. The bill does not change existing law which requires confirmation for permanent promotions for Regular officers. It, therefore, makes uniform the system for all promotions for both components in the grades of lieutenant colonel and colonel.

Difference No. 24

The Senate amendment contained language providing that the National Advisory Committee of the Selective Service shall, in the performance of its function, give appropriate consideration to the needs of the civilian population, as well as the Armed Forces. The House bill contained no similar provision.

The House conferees were able to persuade the Senate conferees that existing procedures within the Selective Service System now adequately provide for the purposes the Senate language is designed to achieve.

The Senate recedes.

Difference No. 25

The House language provides that aliens who claim nonpermanent status may remain in the United States for two years before being liable for service. The purpose of this language was to prevent nonresident aliens residing in the United States for periods in excess of 24 months from avoiding the requirements of the Selective Service law.

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The Senate bill contained no such provision.

The Senate bill included four additions to the Act, proposed by the Administration, which had been rejected by the House. These four additions would provide induction exemption for the following four classes of aliens:

1. Aliens holding foreign-affairs-oriented occupations such as in a diplomatic or counselor capacity, or with a public international organization;

2. Aliens who are not in an exempted category but who are not yet residents in the United States for one year, so as to give the said alien sufficient time to acclimate to American culture and the English language;

3. Additional nonimmigrant aliens who are not now exempted from liability under the Selective Service Act, such as temporary workers, treaty traders, or investors, fiances of American citizens and temporary visitors for business or pleasure. Such persons, in point of fact, are not now subject to registration until after they have been in the United States for an extended period but the language was requested by the Department of State to clarify the law for foreign governments;

4. Any person who has served at least 12 months' active duty in the Armed Forces of a nation with which the United States is associated in mutual defense activities. The present legal requirement is 18 months.

The Senate conferees were able to persuade the House conferees that the Senate,amendment was in the interest of equity for aliens. The House recedes.

Difference No. 26

The law presently limits maximum length of service on local draft boards to 25 years.

The House bill would have reduced this to 15 years.

The Senate amendment compromised the limit at 20 years.

The House recedes.

Difference No. 27

The House bill provided an increase from $50 to $500 in travel pay for uncompensated Selective Service employees.

The Senate bill limited the increase to $250.

The Senate recedes.

Difference No. 28

The House bill provided that a person who receives an induction order while pursuing a full-time course of instruction at a college, university or similar institution shall have his induction postponed until the end of the term or the academic year in the case of his last academic year.

The Senate amendment made a revision to provide the induction shall be postponed until "the end of the semester or term, or academic year in the case of his last academic year." The Senate amendment, therefore, simply adds the word "semester" to preclude any misconstruction of the word "term."

The House recedes.

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In addition, the conferees wish to point out that the amendment extending the authority to induct persons for training and service is retroactively effective to July 2, 1971. The intent of the conferees in making the effective date retroactive is to provide that the period beginning July 2, 1971 and ending on the date of the enactment of H.R. 6531 be treated as an induction period solely for the purpose of insuring that there will be no lapse in the entitlement of any member of the armed forces, or his estate, to the Federal tax benefits which are available to servicemen and their states as a result of certain service during an induction period.

F. EDW. HÉBERT,
MELVIN PRICE,
O. C. FISHER,
CHARLES E. BENNETT,
Mr. LESLIE C. ARENDS,
ALVIN E. O'KONSKI,
Mr. WILLIAM G. BRAY,
Managers on the Part of the House.
JOHN C. STENNIS,

HENRY M. JACKSON,

HARRY F. BYRD, JR.,

MARGARET CHASE SMITH,

STROM THURMOND,

JOHN TOWER,

PETER H. DOMINICK,

Managers on the Part of the Senate.

23. SELECTIVE SERVICE SYSTEM REGULATIONS IMPLEMENTING 1971 AMENDMENTS TO
SELECTIVE SERVICE ACT

SSS MATERIAL PUBLISHED IN FEDERAL REGISTER SINCE SEPT. 28, 1971

Jan. 25, 1972..

Jan. 29, 1972
Mar. 10, 1972.

Mar. 14, 1972..
Mar. 25, 1972.
Apr. 1, 1972

Apr. 8, 1972.

Apr. 15, 1972.
Apr. 18, 1972.
Apr. 20, 1972.

Apr. 26, 1972.

Apr. 27, 1972.

Apr. 28, 1972.

Apr. 29, 1972.
Do

May 5, 1972

May 12, 1972..

May 19, 1972.

Vol. 36, No. 199; pp. 19963, 19964. Exec. Order No. 11623 delegating

Vol 37, No. 7; pp. 479, et seq..... Proposed amendments to SS

Vol. 37, No. 10; pp. 659, et seq... Presidential Proclamation 4101-

Vol. 37, No. 93; pp. 9566, 9567. Proposed SSS Regulations (Secs.

SSS MATERIAL PUBLISHED IN FEDERAL REGISTER SINCE SEPT. 28, 1971-Continued

Amnesty for Vietnam resisters has suddenly become a live issue. The reasons for that are evident: Nixon says we're in a defensive posture in Vietnam, where our effort can be supported by volunteers; voters are looking to a postwar presidency; the draft calls in the fall and winter have been minimal; and amnesty supporters have been hammering on the point that this is the only logical course to take after an immoral war. There has been national publicity: Mike Wallace badgering families and friends and fellow townspeople of refugees in Canada; Time calling for conditional amnesty; Newsweek doing a cover story and taking a poll indicating that 63 percent of the American people favor a conditional or general amnesty.

President Nixon, who in November clipped a startling, flat "No" to a question of whether he would consider amnesty, vacillated in his recent TV interview with Dan Rather, saying he intended to be liberal with amnesty once the war is over. Senator Muskie is talking vaguely about a "national objective of repatriating these young people under some conditions which we will have to work out,' but bases his timing not even on the end of the war, but on the end of the draft! Even Senator McGovern, who was first of the presidential contenders to advocate amnesty, has failed to say specifically whether he favors a universal or a general amnesty law, and if his idea is for general amnesty, what conditions he favors. And the astonished refugee community in Canada is complaining that it has been made into a political football.

However, no one has done more to advance amnesty than the most unlikely advocate of all, Senator Robert Taft of Ohio. His Amnesty Act of 1972 will be the focus of the upcoming debate in Congress. At first glance, it would seem splendid that a conservative should be taking the lead, and no doubt Taft's move has created an instant constituency for general amnesty. Unfortunately, his bill avoids the central moral question: what is right and appropriate for the sponsor of an immoral war to do with those in flight from it?

What does Taft's bill say?

The price of repatriation for the evader is to be a three-year service (a) in the Armed Forces-that is to say, a denial of the purpose of exile-or (b) in Vista, VA or Public Health Service hospitals, or other unspecified federal service a slur against Vista, as if the volunteers were the keepers of the poor, like the hospitals are the keepers of the sick. The alternative federal service is to be performed at the minimum pay grade and without eligibility for normal federal employee benefits. For the resister in jail, a plum is offered: he would be credited with up to two years of prison time to apply to his three-year service obligation. And for the deserter, as if conscientious flight once a person sees the horrors of our military and Vietnam policies from the inside is a higher crime, no provision is made. Taft feels normal miltary justice should take care of the deserters. Congressman Edward Koch of New York who is the longest-standing advocate of "options" for the exiles has offered a bill similar to Sen. Taft's, with the essential difference of a two-year instead of three-year alternative serv

1 James Reston, Jr., served in the U.S. Army from 1965 to 1968. His first novel, To Defend, To Destroy has recently been published by Norton.