War resisters demand also an immediate halt to the gross irony of the criminal and ineffective babylift, and all similar attempts on the part of the U.S. Government at such cynical manipulation of public opinion.

To sum up the position of war resisters is easy: We demand real amnesty and real peace.

Thank you.

Mr. KASTENMEIER. Thank you, Mr. Condon.

I notice in your testimony you really criticize all of the extant bills before the House and the Senate. Do you yourself have a model bill which would achieve what you think should be achieved in terms of amnesty?

Mr. CONDON. No; I do not. I think it would not be terribly difficult for such a bill to be devised, a bill that would cover all categories of people who are being punished for their resistance to the war and a bill which would deal with these people on a class basis rather than a case-by-case basis and would have no punitive aspects whatsoever.

Mr. KASTEN MEIER. In that regard I take it you are in agreement with the preceding witnesses. Mr. Schwarzschild and Mr. Lynn, to the extent that you heard their statement.

Mr. CONDON. They said many things. You would have be more specific.

Mr. KASTENMEIER. In terms of their reservations about the Hart bill. Mr. CONDON. Yes; definitely.

Mr. KASTENMEIER. Mr. Condon, I think you are probably in a very good position to judge this. It has been speculated that notwithstanding whatever change there is, but even assuming some sort of acceptable amnesty bill that could become law, that because of the years that have passed many of our exiles in Canada and in Sweden really are no longer interested in amnesty. They have made new homes and presumably would stay where they are in the present situation.

Do you think that is true, that they really do not have much interest in what this country does with respect to this question?

Mr. CONDON. No; I do not think that is true at all. It is true that of approximately 20,000 American exiles in Canada, perhaps half or better than half intend to remain residents of that country and intend to take out citizenship when they have that opportunity. Some of them already have. Even these people, however, believe they do have the right and they should have the right to visit their families and friends in the United States.

I think also that many of them came to their decision to remain in Canada because they sometime in the past gave up hope of being able to return to this country under honorable conditions, and of course they had to get about the business of their lives.

As far as people in Sweden, where I also lived, I think that the majority of the people there are interested in returning to live in the United States.

Mr. KASTEN MEIER. While you strongly oppose the Nelson-Javits bill, do you support that provision in it which would allow exiles to return to this country no matter what charges are pending for 30 days each year to visit their families, as a sanctuary, being fully permitted to return to their location of exile?

Mr. CONDON. No; I do not support that provision. I do not support any move, any legislative move short of a total, universal and uncon

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ditional amnesty, not only because in principle I believe that is what we should have, but also because I think half measures may well discourage Congress from acting further.

Mr. KASTEN MEIER. Thank you.

Colonel Miller, you have come all the way across the country. Both of you have been engaged in speaking programs. I gather after you speak to audiences they seem to be in general agreement with the thrust of your statement. Do you think generally they are before you speak to them? Polls do not indicate that sort of support for amnesty.

Colonel MILLER. Yes, sir. I find that quite often before I start speaking some of the audience appears somewhat hostile but afterwards many of them will come up and talk to me personally about my views and the biggest hangup which we all have is how far, how broad, should an amnesty program go?

And as I have said in my statement, it just seems impossible for us to try to find some way for a case-by-case study, and it just seems to me, I think we all are in agreement with President Ford in that what we really want is an end to the divisive situation in the country over Vietnam. And it seems the only way that we can really accomplish that to the good of our country is a very broad and unconditional amnesty

program.

Mr. KASTENMEIER. There have been other views expressed. Colonel Miller, in your view what would a broad, very broad and unconditional amnesty do now to the morale of those serving in the military today?

Colonel MILLER. Well, I have many friends still in the military and I have gone to the University of California, Irvine campus, and now in Western State University Law School and I speak to many of the veterans there. We get together for drinks and talking. And most of the veterans who served in Vietnam really feel that they were misused, that the war was wrong, and they see no harm in an amnesty program for all of the people in these categories.

Now, not all of them are firmly convinced yet that it should be that broad, but I do not run into any veteran that would really be antagonistic toward an amnesty program. Most of them feel it is an inevitable result anyway, one of these days. It is just a matter of time. And I think most of them feel that it certainly is warranted in many people's categories and they recognize the difficulty in trying to resolve those that it might not be correct for.

Mr. KASTENMEIER. One final question and then I will yield to my colleagues.

Do you feel that matters other than those associated with resistance to the war or conscientious objection, maybe draft evasion, desertion, other things, other offenses, such as violence, assaults, fraggings should they all be forgiven too, or forgotten, as the case may be?

Colonel MILLER. I am with you. This is a very hard hurdle to overcome. And again, I can only say it seems that the Congress here itself has done away with the draft. We forced these young men into a situation and then our own population, or a large majority of it, was very anti-Vietnam war in the last few years. We encouraged these peopleif not right out, counseled them-on avoiding the war or taking some type of action.

I feel that to a great extent all of us have a responsibility in this field and to hold these people guilty separately at this point is not correct.

Mr. KASTENMEIER. That is to say in the case where an individual in Canada has also committed a murder.

Colonel MILLER. No. I believe that crimes of this nature-murder, rape, totally unassociated with the Vietnam war--certainly are crimes that stand by themselves.

Mr. KASTEN MEIER. I yield to the gentleman from California, Mr. Danielson.

Mr. DANIELSON. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.

I am more and more convinced that the concept of alternative service is a myth and would not do any good here. I am glad, Colonel, that you recognize, as indicated by the answer to the last question, everything that we are dealing with here is not just absence from service. There are other cases and that is what makes them sticky.

I do not really know how to solve some of these problems. I am satisfied of one thing. If we are going to do anything here, it is pointless, unless we do something which will effectively put an end to a real problem and a real problem is how this, oh, 118,000 people, more or less, can be reintegrated into our society and our economy. And we have got to find something pretty general to fit that or nothing.

The word "amnesty" means to forget. You know if we keep this up long enough, we will have forgotten. And as a practical matter I favor the case-by-case approach, and yet I do not think it is a realistic solution. I do not think we would ever get it done.

The figures from Mr. Goodell's committee, I asked counsel and I understand that they have reviewed some 175 cases and they have got the same number already for review. They have acted on 65. Well, if you increased that tenfold, the remedy, the methodology, is not good enough to end the problem.

Thanks for your contribution. I do not know what I am going to do with it but I will think about it.

Colonel MILLER. Mr. Danielson, if I could just respond to some questions you asked previously.

Mr. DANIELSON. Certainly.

Colonel MILLER. These people that we are talking about that we want to integrate back into our society, I agree with you; I do not believe they are looking for rewards.

Mr. DANIELSON. I do not think they are.

Colonel MILLER. From the GI bill, or as I understand from military papers and publications that I read now, the Department of Defense is requesting that the GI bill be canceled in a peacetime era here.

Mr. DANIELSON. Let me corect you on that in case you have not gotten the word. The benefits of the GI bill have never flown to anyone except those who have rendered service during a time of conflict. The peacetime army or military service never did carry with it the benefits of the so-called GI bill. And now that the war in Vietnam is deemed to have been over since, I think, 2 years ago-you ought to know. You remember quite well-some arbitrary date has been selected subsequent to that marking the termination of hostilities. And that also marks the termination of GI bill benefits. I cannot tell you what the date is.

Colonel MILLER. OK. The only other point-throughout my career the undesirable discharge was very seldom used. Until the Vietnam war era it was primarily a way of getting rid of known homosexuals from the service.

Mr. DANIELSON. I was in the Navy and I remember that as basically what we used it for.

Colonel MILLER. Yes. So it seems to me it is not too hard to draw a conclusion that the undesirable discharge was used for political expediency, administrative expediency, to get rid of those that were voicing objection to the Vietnam war and the military during those years.

Mr. DANIELSON. In connection with the amnesty, how would you react to this? I am just groping for ideas here.

One of the many hangups along here is what kind of a discharge are you going to use? Maybe a better way to solve that is to have no discharge at all, just call the case closed. You know that is really what we are talking about anyway. I cannot think of the word that we would use but we are just calling the case closed. They do not get any discharge; they do not need one. The time has expired.

I do not know what we would call it. I am groping for something here. But what do you think of the concept anyway?

Colonel MILLER. I agree with that, that either a single type discharge or no discharge. It really seems to me that it is the poor or the bluecollar worker type segment of our society who are the only ones who are ever asked for their discharge anyway.

Mr. DANIELSON. Suppose we were to let them resign. You know there are a lot of officers that can resign a commission. There is nothing dishonorable about that.

Colonel MILLER. And many do under threat of court-martial.

Mr. DANIELSON. That is right, but at the same time you can do it without there being the connotation of something bad connected with it.

Colonel MILLER. Yes.

Mr. DANIELSON. Well, it is a thought. Thank you so much.

Mr. KASTENMEIER. The gentleman from New York, Mr. Pattison. Mr. PATTISON. I think that in "Alice in Wonderland" they used to have un-birthday parties. We could have an un-discharge.

Colonel Miller, I am interested in your feeling about how other people with long military service feel. I am curious about how you perhaps feel, and you may not be able to respond to this at all.

The organized veterans groups like the Disabled American Veterans and the VFW and the American Legion I think pretty generally take an official position that they are opposed to any kind of amnesty or any amnesty that they are in favor of would be very limited. And I am curious as to what your feeling is about to what extent those groups actually represent the feeling of the veteran, not just their members.

Colonel MILLER. Well, I am a member of the VFW and I am a life member of the Disabled American Veterans and the Marine Corps League Association, and I support these organizations to the best of my time and ability, so I do associate with these people. They are friends of mine.

Most of them at first have a hard time accepting my views on the subject, but after we discuss it they do come around, and it is a matter of degree, when they stop to think about what brought about this war, the history, and not a selective history about our involvement. in Vietnam but an actual history of our involvement in Vietnam. And it is hard for them, the older ones that served in World War II

and very little past that, to realize that our country became involved in a war such as Vietnam. To them war in this country and our military revolves entirely around a patriotic war, World War II, and they have not kept up or did not through the years. And now that they have, there is no difficulty. I have never had any problem talking to any of my friends or associates in the military about this matter. Änd they certainly have always given me the courtesy of respecting my opinion, as I have given to their opinion. And we get some real good discussions on it quite often. But I do not feel that any of these groups you are right, they take a group position, and I do not think it is a clear reflection of their membership.

Unfortunately, when you attend meetings, if they have a 100-man detachment, very few show up for the meeting. Very few are actually running the meeting. And they pass these resolutions rather indiscriminately and there is not really a vote taken of the membership. And I do not think it is truly reflective of the membership when they make these things.

Now the VFW, particularly, and the American Legion are having a difficult time. They are recruiting the Vietnam generation men into their organization. They have had quite extensive campaigns to do it. It has been quite a hurdle for them to accept these men in strange clothes and long hair and beards into the organization, but it is coming about. And I think this is good. But I am not sure that the present generation, the Vietnam veterans, are really interested at this time, at least in large numbers, of joining veterans organizations, which may mean that the veterans organizations are going to lose in membership through the years more and more. And it is probably because of the attitude about the Vietnam war. There are not that many veterans that are proud of their service in Vietnam as there was in World War II.

Mr. CONDON. If I might add to the Colonel's response. I have found in traveling around the country that some of our most enthusiastic and active support for universal and unconditional amnesty comes from young Vietnam veterans; people who were actually over in Vietnam. And that by and large, the people that were there and saw-of course, many interpret their experience differently, but a very large percentage of them are totally disenchanted with the Vietnam war, and are very strongly in favor of amnesty.

I was speaking at a meeting recently where a young former green beret came up to me after the meeting, and we had just shown a film about landmines, and he felt pretty bad because he and some of his buddies used to throw them all over the place. But he was talking about the fact that he has been in touch with people in his unit that he was in Vietnam with--these are special forces people-and every single one of them is against the war and for amnesty. And we find that to be not an exceptional instance at all.

Mr. DANIELSON. I just wanted to ask Mr. Condon a question in that connection. I read your statement, as well as listened to it. You never were in Vietnam as I recall.

Mr. CONDON. That is correct.

Mr. DANIELSON. How long was it that you were in the service before you left the service?