KTLA News: "Press conference against the military draft" (1971)

[Man] Don't read the whole... It is our opinion that there is no such overwhelming  national need for a military draft today. The American Civil Liberties Union has not taken a position on registration as such. And actually, as I said the legislative situation in Washington  is such that if Congress does not extend the draft, registration would still remain. And we take no position on that. But we believe most emphatically, that those people who proposed an extension of the draft have not proven that there is any need for that in this country today.  There is no overwhelming national need for a draft. [Reporter] ...sort of paraphase it? [Man] Yeah. [ambient noise] Friends Committee on Legislation wants to call upon the President to rescind his order to extend the draft for two more years. We think this is another indication of the President's attempts to hide behind a façade of attempted reforms instead of really solving the  problems which, which caused the protest. President Nixon himself has said nothing detracts  more from our democratic system than the military draft. General Hershey has said that there is  no way to make the draft... democratic. The Gates Commission which was appointed by President Nixon was unanimous in its call for ending the draft this coming summer. Leaders on the left and on the right both believe that the draft should be ended in - this summer. Massive opposition to the draft is being mounted by young people who are involved in, in this by their parents and by the general public in general. I don't think that we should be fooled by President Nixon's saying that he intends to reduce the draft calls to zero. We've got to end the draft completely and that means ending registration as well as conscription. We cannot be fooled into trying to figure how victims of an unjust system can be equally robbed of their freedom. I think this is just another instance of President Nixon pretending that he is for something, when he is actually taking action that is directly in opposition to this. Do you, do you want a longer...? [Reporter] Mr. Fino [?], Senator Edward Kennedy, a well-known dove on the subject, and I believe trained with a volunteer army... I think that you're a little bit misinformed about Senator Kennedy's position. ...that's universal, universal national training for everybody. [Reporter] Do you think this would be fair? Would you advocate this instead of just dropping the draft altogether? Well I, I think that the massive opposition to the draft demonstrates that there - that the draft is not a fair, maybe not even constitutional way to get men to serve in the Army. If, if this is the case, if there is something wrong with the principle of drafting young men, if it's not in keeping with the sense of the American Constitution, why would it be more - why would it solve any of these problems to enlarge it to include everybody? [Man from ACLU] I think that the proposal for a national service draft is really an extraordinarily peculiar one. This country has always prided itself on the freedoms that people have. And here we're taking a bad situation and some people seem to be proposing to make it worse. Not the necessity of military defense but some vague concept of national service becomes the reason for depriving  young people of their freedom. And I think we should realize that that's exactly what a draft means. It means taking young people from their homes, from their schools, from their businesses, from their futures really, and putting them into uniform, under military rule, in order to further a national aim. Well the question of course it seems to me is, is there a legitimate national interest involved at this time? And I think the burden of proof falls upon those people who propose an extension of the draft. Actually we have before us proposals - proposals incidentally that come out of the Nixon administration. The Gates Commission did propose a program that did not necessitate a draft. And that was a volunteer army that they felt would in the long run be actually a cheaper expenditure of funds. Now here I'm making an assumption which  not - perhaps not all of us may accept. But let's assume that we do need a military force. Let's assume we may need a military force of as much as three million men. Well the cost of such a military force would be approximately four and a half billion dollars according to the Gates Commission. And the Gates Commission made the point that because of the professionalism of such a military force, in actuality this would be a better expenditure of funds than the wasteful draft system that now exists. And of course it would have the advantage of being a volunteer force rather than a, a conscripted force. [Reporter] Do you, uh, gentlemen... [Man] Most countries... Well... [Man from ACLU] I think it's important to emphasize that the opposition to the draft cuts across all political lines. [Reporter] ...fact is, tour of South Vietnam and after talking to the boys over there...