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1 such citizenship or who became a naturalized citizen of a

2 foreign country between August 4, 1965, and March 28,

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1973, solely or partly because of disapproval of military in4 volvement of the United States in Indochina shall be fully 5 and unconditionally restored upon petition by such individual 6 to any district court of the United States: Provided, That he 7 or she renounces citizenship in such foreign country.

8 (b) Any former citizen of the United States who makes

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a sworn statement to an appropriate official of the Immigra10 tion and Naturalization Service, Department of Justice, to 11 the effect that he renounced his citizenship or became a nat12 uralized citizen of a foreign country between August 4, 1965, 13 and March 28, 1973, solely or partly because of disapproval 14 of military involvement of the United States in Indochina 15 shall be exempted from the provisions of section 212 (a) (22) 16 of the Immigration and Naturalization Act (8 U.S.C. 1182 17 (a) (23)).

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SEC. 12. There are authorized to be appropriated such 19 sums as may be necessary to carry out the provisions of this

20 Act.

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SEC. 13. If any provision of this Act or the application

thereof to any person or circumstance is held invalid, the remainder of the Act and the application of such provision to

24 other persons or to other circumstances shall not be affected

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thereby.

NEWSPAPER EDITORIALS IN SUPPORT OF SENATE BILL 1290

[From the New York Times, Mar. 31, 1975]

FOR FURTHER AMNESTY

(By Gaylord Nelson)

WASHINGTON-The time has come for Congress to take further steps to heal the deep wounds inflicted on our nation by the Vietnam war. Specifically, Congress should support and extend the President's amnesty program-which ends at midnight tonight-for the thousands of young men who evaded the draft or deserted the military during the conflict.

The need for Congressional action is clear. Last September, President Ford took the constructive step of establishing a program to provide amnesty for thousands of young men who, for one reason or another, felt the need to refuse the draft or desert the military during the war. In creating that program, the President recognized, as we all should, that the interests of society were served best when its system of justice reflected a good measure of understanding and mercy. Already there is enough experience under the President's program to demonstrate that point. One representative case considered by the Clemency Board created by the President, for example, involved an individual who had served valiantly with the Army in Vietnam for almost a year.

He was wounded three times and was awarded three Purple Hearts, the Vietnam Service Medal and the Bronze Star for Valor. After he was reassigned to the United States, his father went bankrupt because of a drinking problem and his family generally fell upon hard times. He consequently returned home without Army authorization to earn money to help his parents and seven brothers and sisters. Despite these circumstances, the man was fined, sentenced to six months at hard labor, and given a bad-conduct discharge by the Army.

The problem here is that under the most recent executive order every eligible draft evader and military deserter must apply for clemency by tonight. After that, there will be no institutionalized opportunity for an eligible individual to seek the clemency he may deserve. This would be most unfortunate.

Of the approximately 125,000 men eligible to apply for clemency, fewer than 20,000 have taken advantage of the opportunity. We do not know all the reasons that may account for the unwillingness or inability of eligible individuals to apply. But we do know that the spirit of reconciliation will be undermined if the opportunity for those individuals to receive mercy is withdrawn.

Congress, however, should not expect the President alone to continue to bear the burdens of the amnesty program. Congress, after all, repeatedly voted billions of dollars of public funds for the war. Congress thus assumed some responsibility for the conduct of American policies in Vietnam. Congress should now accept some responsibility for ending the divisiveness that the war created.

A bill has been introduced to continue the amnesty program, with certain modifications, including the following:

The Clemency Board would have jurisdiction over all cases of draft evasion and military desertion during the war. The President's program is now operated by four separate departments, with the result that different agencies are applying different criteria to people in similar situations.

Any individual who returns from a foreign country would be allowed to return there if any offer of clemency was rejected. An individual should not have to risk prosecution to apply for clemency.

Any Vietnam draft evader or military deserter living abroad would be given a 30-day nonimmigrant visa at least once a year to allow for family visits. We should not compound the heartaches of the war by prohibiting a family from seeing their son, especially when his alleged offense may be based on moral principle or some other compelling reason.

All deadlines for application would be eliminated. There is no sense in making this process a race to beat the clock.

There are indeed broad disagreements among people about the merits of the President's amnesty program. At some point Congress is going to have to resolve the question of unconditional amnesty. But in the meantime we should not allow thousands of young men to become the unintended victims of our disagreements. Time is running out for them.

[From the Detroit Free Press, Apr. 7, 1975]

AS WE SEE IT-CONGRESS SHOULD INITIATE EXTENDED CLEMENCY PLAN

No matter what the final figure on the number of persons who took advantage of President Ford's now-expired clemency program, there remains a need for Congress to take the initative in extending and simplifying the program.

Despite its detractors and its internal complexities, the Ford program has gone a long way toward clearing the decks on the deserters and draft resisters. By the time the totals are run on the last-minute flurry, more than a quarter of those eligible will have responded. That is an important step toward ending the festering wound left by the war.

And as Father Theodore Hesburgh, the president of Notre Dame University and a member of the clemency board, said recently, the numbers have long since surpassed the percentage of eligible persons granted amnesty under President Harry Truman's case-by-case review after World War II.

So the Ford program-limited and maligned though it has been-may be of more enduring importance than its critics imagine now.

This could be especially so if the Congress were to accept the suggestion of several of its members, including Sen. Gaylord Nelson, D-Wis., who has suggested a congressional clemency program, which would set up simplified machinery to replace the four separate facets of the Ford program and would remove the deadlines. Sen. Nelson also would provide for a 30-day non-immigrant visa for any deserter or draft evader living abroad to visit his family at least once a year.

As Sen. Nelson expressed it, "Congress should not expect the president alone to continue to bear the burdens of the amnesty program. Congress, after all, repeatedly voted billions of dollars of public funds for the war. Congress thus assumed some responsibility for the conduct of American policies in Vietnam. Congress should now accept some responsibility for ending the divisiveness that the war created."

The question of unconditional amnesty is still much in the hearts of many opponents of the war. They see the war as having been such a moral outrage that it is unconscionable to continue to prosecute or persecute those who opposed it. But the case-by-case approach, whatever its limitations, is now more clearly an acceptable course to the American public. It is, moreover, more in keeping with panhandling of clemency that many of its critics have conceded. Congress should accept Sen. Nelson's suggestion and provide machinery for a continuing clemency opportunity.

[From the Evening Bulletin, Apr. 1975]

Too FEW TAKERS-CONGRESS AND CLEMENCY

As disappointment over the results of America's long, costly involvement in Vietnam grows deeper, it is regrettable that President Ford has allowed his Vietnam clemency program to expire.

Certainly at this time, the nation should not be withdrawing a reconciling gesture to thousands of young Americans who are, in a sense, refugees from their own country.

The Presidential Clemency Board and related federal agencies stopped accepting applications for clemency from war resisters, draft evaders and deserters when their authority to do so ended on March 31.

That means there are still more than 100,000 young men who are eligible for conditional clemency but, for a variety of reasons, did not choose to seek it in time. President Ford gave his well-intentioned program two brief extensions, but it remained open for only six months.

The President has seemed reluctant to involve Congress in a continuing clemency initiative. Congress ought to enter the picture now. Senators Gaylord Nelson (D-Wis) and Jacob Javits (R-NY) have submitted a bill to place the entire clemency program under the clemency board, rather than parcelling it out to the board and the defense and justice departments. They would also avoid a set deadline on clemency.

The three-part nature of the President's program opened it to appearances of confusion and conflicting criteria for clemency. More uniform administration of clemency cases seems in order.

The failing economy has dried up jobs for war resisters in alternative civilian service. This, too, is a hurdle for Congress to reckon with, perhaps by apportioning federally funded public service jobs for clemency applicants.

President Ford's conditional clemency offer attracted only about 22,500 of 136,900 eligible young men. Congress should explore the reasons for its limited appeal, with a view toward removing unduly onerous or conflicting requirements.

[From the Los Angeles Times, Apr. 11, 1975]

MERCY FOR OUR OWN

The words compassion and humanitarianism are being heard more often in this country as the horror mounts in South Vietnam and Cambodia. But that same spirit of mercy is being denied American casualties of the conflict in Southeast Asia.

We support, then, a bipartisan effort in the U.S. Senate to revive the prospect of amnesty for young Americans guilty of violating military and draft laws during the Vietnam era.

Only 24,000 of the 125,000 eligible for clemency had taken advantage of it when President Ford's deadline for applications ran out March 31. But that was no reason for closing the door on the 101,000 who had not yet come forward. In fact, the President chose not to extend the deadline exactly when violators were responding in ever-greater numbers.

Sens. Gaylord Nelson (D-Wis.) and Jacob K. Javits (R-N.Y.) are coauthors of legislation that would remove all time limits for clemency applications. They argue, and we agree, that there are huge numbers of offenders who will apply once it becomes evident to them that the rulings of the clemency board have been just and compassionate.

Those who oppose the extension of amnesty continue to base their case on false grounds-that most violators are military deserters or draft dodgers who fled the country to avoid war service. But only one in seven falls into that category. The rest are veterans who left the service with less-than-honorable discharges, or civilians who already have paid the penalty for draft offenses. For them, clemency is no more than an opportunity to clear their records.

The Nelson-Javits legislation contains two other recommendations, both affecting violators living abroad. One would let them come back and submit themselves to clemency procedures, but return to their countries of refuge if they found the clemency board's decisions unacceptable. Another recommendation is that draft evaders and military deserters living abroad should be given 30-day non-immigrant visas once a year to visit their families in this country.

Those proposals probably will encounter stiff opposition in Congress. But logic and compassion clearly argue for passage of the main feature of the legislation. There should be no arbitrary time limit for those willing to step forward and accept whatever penalties may be imposed.

[From the New York Post, Mar. 26, 1975]

UNFINISHED RECONCILIATION

As most of its members now agree, Congress has no obligation to furnish funds indefinitely for Cambodia and South Vietnam to wage unending war. It might, however, undertake another kind of open-ended commitment that could help restore peace at home.

The enabling legislation has been introduced by Sen. Nelson (D-Wis.), with the objective of extending the Presidential amnesty plan for Vietnam deserters and draft avoiders which, after two extensions by the White House, is now due to expire early next week. The bill would also liberalize the program's present terms.

Sen. Nelson believes a number of applicants "may need considerable time" to make a decision on seeking clemency, principally those who were forced to make "agonizing choices" between law and their consciences. Moreover, whatever the merit of the President's decision to offer a clemency plan, there is no question that its provisions remain unacceptable to men whose conscientious objection to Vietnam service was most principled.

Another bill, offered by Sen. Hart (D-Mich.), would unequivocally confer unconditional amnesty on all men-105,000 of about 125,000-who have not yet applied to the clemency board. Its prospects (although Nelson supports it) may be less promising at the moment. In the long run, however, the country must come to terms with the basic issue: will there be no homecoming for those who refuse to abdicate conviction?

[From the Philadelphia Inquirer, April 7, 1975]

A CLEAR FAILURE DEMANDS A NEW CLEMENCY PROGRAM

Last Monday, the conditional clemency program which President Ford had established for military deserters and draft evaders ran out of time. It cannot be called a success. On numbers alone, with only 22,000 of an estimated 120,000 potential participants having signed up, the program clearly did not achieve the wide acceptance that Mr. Ford and its administrators had hoped for.

Events in Indochina are moving with lightning swiftness toward a grim and bloody resolution of that ill-starred peninsula's torments. Americans and their leaders soon will face a potentially bitter reconsideration of the entire debate of U.S. motives and failures in more than 10 years of deep involvement in Southeast Asia.

With that prospect in sight, it seems a poor time-close to an impossible time— to try to resolve the questions left pending by the clemency program. Mr. Ford, who had extended the scheme once already, was wise, we believe, to recognize that another extension would serve little purpose.

But the more than 100,000 Americans who did not come forward to offer themselves for public service jobs in return for conditional forgiveness of their desertion or evasion will not go away. And so long as they remain, a band of men with reason of their own to believe they have been unjustly treated, they will constitute an unhealed wound in America's side.

A sense of fairness and justice, especially in connection with the dreadful American experience in Southeast Asia, is vitally necessary for this nation's moral well-being. To achieve it for the deserters and draft evaders without destroying it for those who fought in good faith, or who lost members of their families in the same good faith, is a ponderously difficult problem.

But it is one which must be faced, and which has not been solved. Mr. Ford will do well to reach out once again for the best and most humane available counsel, and to work out a new program built on the understandings to be derived from the last six months.

[From the Boston Globe, Apr. 3, 1975]

THE CASE FOR AMNESTY

It seems appropriate, somehow, that President Gerald Ford's clemency program for draft evaders and deserters during our military involvement in the Vietnam War should have expired just at the start of April Fool's Day. For it has fooled both those it was intended to benefit and the rest of the nation as well.

Mr. Ford established it last September by using his pardon power to set up a nine-member Presidential Clemency Board and three smaller operations at the Coast Guard and the Departments of Justice and Defense. When it expired March 31 after two one-month extensions, it had attracted only 18 percent of the estimated 134,000 young men eligible to take part in the program.

Of these, some 18,000 were processed by the Clemency Board, 5400 by the Defense Department, 589 by the Justice Department and 12 by the Coast Guard, for a total of some 24,000. That leaves another 110,000 young men, many of them self-exiled abroad, who wanted no part of the program. And it seems worth explaining why they felt this way, and why the program didn't work for many of those who asked clemency.

It didn't work for the latter because they had to accept a dishonorable discharge or serve a period of alternative service for a clemency discharge; in both cases this involved an admission of wrongdoing and a harsh penalty. A dishonorable discharge can ruin employment opportunities for a lifetime; alternative service jobs are scarce in a declining economy, and many agencies dislike the idea of conscripted labor.

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