The matter we probed today is amnesty. Our first guest is the Reverend Edward Irving Swanson, an Episcopal clergyman, consultant to the Committee on Armed Forces Personnel and also director of publications of the General Commission on Chaplains, the Reverend Mr. Edward Irving Swanson. Tell us what we're talking about when we're talking about amnesty.

Amnesty is the declaration on the part of the government with respect to people who have disobeyed its laws that they may return if they have fled the country, that no punitive action will be taken toward them, that their rights as citizens are fully restored, conditions may well be attacked. To the granting of an amnesty, but it is offered by the government, in contrast to the granting of a pardon, an amnesty is a class action, whereas a pardon is an individual action.

Thank you very much, Mr. Swanson. And our next guest is Mr. Konrad Bronk, formerly assistant director of the National Interreligious Service Board for Conscientious Objectors and who's now working for free at Northwestern University in Evanston, Illinois. Mr. Bronk, what are the options to the many who didn't want to serve in Vietnam? What could they do? Well, if a man has exhausted all his legal rights and is unable to get a deferment or exemption and he is not a conscientious objector, as that is defined by the law, that is, he's not opposed to all wars at all times. He really doesn't have any option open to him other than to refuse induction into the armed forces. And if he does so, he faces the probable court trial and three to five years in prison or he can flee the country. And if he does that, he probably will never be able to return unless an amnesty is granted even so much as to visit his family and friends. Thank you, Mr. Brunk, very much. Our next guest is Mr. Sean Fitzpatrick, who's a member of the Vietnam Veterans for a Just Peace, a senior at the University of Maryland, College Park, Maryland, and who served for 18 months in Vietnam between nineteen sixty seven and sixty nine. Mr. Fitzpatrick, you obviously are a Vietnam veteran. Is your view on this matter of amnesty and granting those who have been draft dodgers and who broke out of the military service, went to Sweden or Canada, would it be colored by any feeling of bitterness in terms of your service, quote, they ran rather than fought? Well, personally, I feel a certain amount of bitterness. But as far as any sort of national policy that I support or tolerate, I can accept an amnesty for the draft evaders and also for the draft evaders who left the country or who went to prison quite easily, provided it's made clear that it is an amnesty for an act that that was illegal and that that did have some claim upon upon their life. But that is the law was was violated rather than some people are trying to do, is make the amnesty declaration or statement of exoneration and condemnation of the war itself. Thank you very much, gentlemen. Some time back, Senator Goldwater gave these words to deserters and draft evaders staying, quote, stay where you are. You're not. Welcome back here. What's your comment, your reaction to that idea?

This is a poor statement on the part of the senator. And in a better frame of mind, he would retract it. I think I would contrast it with more statesman like position, which I see in the stance of Senator Taft, who sponsored a bill on amnesty. He's a conservative also, and the Taft reputation is for statesmanship. So his father and I point out the bipartisan character of the interest in this subject in Congress, Jack Kennedy has conducted hearings and Senator Taft, a conservative Republican, has introduced a bill.

I'm glad you mentioned bipartisan. We don't want to get into political issues here, but we may have two gentlemen. Excuse me. Any other comments you'd like to make on this particular question? I agree that. With Senator Goldwater, to the extent that there's really no I feel no compulsion to grant amnesty, I just stood in a way with tolerate an amnesty under the conditions. I stated earlier that as far as I'm concerned personally, the people who left the country can stay there. And if they I don't think there should be any effort to extradite them. I don't think that if they change their citizenship, they they should be treated any differently than we treat other US citizens to visit the country. But I would never push for an amnesty amnesty bill, except perhaps for conscientious objectors or other draft resisters who, instead of leaving the country, went went to prison, who in effect said, I can't go along with serving in the military in Vietnam or in general, though I can't persuade you that I'm honest. But I do I do think that I owe the country enough to to stand by the law. Mr. Fitzpatrick. Mr. Swanson, you

want to say I think that this is intolerable because I said for the national interest here, as the war has worn down, we have a whole national future and it's of the essence to the well-being of the country as it gets about its business in time to come, that we put this whole episode behind us and we do it as graciously and felicitously as we can. And this includes, as a necessity, the grant of an amnesty. We cannot afford to leave seventy thousand young men in limbo around the world. They've got to make it possible for them to come home. This does not connote or mean in any sense that we have to bless their actions and say, oh, let's forget it, because too much cost has been paid by too many people, but we have to make it possible for them to come back. Why? Because people are valuable. We still in our society have a regard for the worth of a person.

And also because the issue of the Vietnam War, whether that war is right or wrong, regardless of individual feelings about that war, it has been probably with the exception of the civil war, the most divisive issue that we have ever had in this country. And if we are going to have any kind of reconciliation, if the country is going to be brought together again in any kind of way, I would say that amnesty is a necessity. There is no good to be served to continue the divisiveness. Sean Fitzpatrick, you want to make a comment here? What do you want to say to this? Just that. As an act of generosity, I have no objection to the amnesty, I just don't like the idea or the implication in what Mr. Swanson is saying, that somehow these we owe these people anything they should do, that we ought to let them come back, that we can do it as an act of generosity, which I would would support. It's a good thing for a nation to do. But I don't think that that we that it's really to our benefit other than other than as a as a generous thing to do. It isn't I can't see any national benefit or healing wounds.

There's an enormous national benefit. This is can be put in terms of sheer stark national interest, self interest in the restoration of a portion of our citizenry to status among us.

But this is the kind of citizenship all we're asking to do, something that is often asked of people who belong to some country, particularly a country in the position of the United States. And they said, no, I won't do it. That is not entirely correct, because with the issue of the draft, we have a law which does not touch all people equally. That's obvious. It only touches a very few people. Explain that. All right. Many people, most people, it's all people, but most people who were draft age during the period of the Vietnam War got some kind of deferment or exemption. They never were faced with war. To start with, almost 50 percent of the people got physical deferments because only half of the people who are examined actually passed the physical. Then there was a large number, what you referred there, where all the people who were they deferred their way through the draft by college and other means. And so it touched only a very few people. Now, there were some people who were not able to escape the draft, but who reached a point where they said, I cannot participate in this war and my only option is to leave. Why do these people have to be forever banished from the country or forever suffer the stigma of less than honorable discharges when the law to begin with is so arbitrary and capricious in the way it touches just the very things that you've named this tremendous self interest that has motive that you say motivated a lot of the better off people who were able to afford doctors certificates and lawyers fees and so forth to keep out of the army if they eventually left the country. What good do we want to invite these people who are manifestly selfish back into the country? Why? Why is it necessary? We might do it as an act of generosity and irrespective of the nature of the people where we're allowing to come back. But I don't don't don't like the implication that somehow it's not the actual fact that they come back. It's a good thing. I think the act that we perform might be a good thing. Another thing, all I'm saying is that 80 percent of the people who come under the draft law have already been granted amnesty by deferments and exemptions. Well, I mean, the physical problem is that you want to some some people say, objection, you seem

to be raising. I can understand, because this is perhaps the most emotionally charged issue before the American people at this time. We have the families of fifty five thousand men who died as a result of their going to Vietnam. And we have some three million who have served in gone over there and come back. Of course, it's charged tremendously. But I think on one side, for example, you have people who say to grant an amnesty. Will grossly dishonor the memory of those who have died. Yes, and on the other hand, you have of people who fled and demand virtually that the federal government announced a national Mayakoba of what may I call upon my fault, my error. And to expect this on the part of the US government is bordering on the fatuous. I have very little patience with either of these extremes. I do not believe that an amnesty will he will dishonor the memory of those who have failed

to honor them in this country, has a tradition of amnesty. And that in itself is is reason and that give us as many as seven less stringent amnesty in different situations. In seventeen ninety five, President Washington granted a full amnesty to the participants in the famous or infamous Whiskey Rebellion after the Civil War. After the Civil War, there were several. During the Civil War, there were several amnesties granted by President Lincoln. And after the war, rebels also to return to their units. After the Civil War began on Christmas Day of eighteen sixty eight, President Andrew Johnson granted a full and complete, unconditional amnesty to all confederates who had taken up arms against their country. They swore allegiance to the US if they know it was just it was all those amnesties. Restoring citizenship to people who had to rebels were conditional upon taking an oath of allegiance to and abiding by it to the US, every one of them, all the way up to the very last one in seventeen and back, as I thought shortly before. Nineteen hundred was was there was a final amnesty granted to some Confederate officers that allowed them to vote back in the 80s. There have always been some kind of conditions and the conditions have usually been somewhat related to the offense. And of course, in the civil war you had people who had actually taken up arms against their country. And in the situation of the Vietnam War, you have people whose only crime was to refuse to take up arms against any human being or raises a very interesting question, Mr. Bronk, in my own mind, of those who fled, left the country. And you mentioned the reverend, Mr. Swanson, the number. Seventy thousand. I want to go back. Do we know how many there are in Canada? Sweden, primarily military deserters aren't there. In Sweden, there's there's no way to tell because just to get the immigration officers, of course, don't know who comes in as a draft deserter, the draft refuser or what, whether he has any particular criminal record or has violated any law or generally accepted figure of draft refusers in Canada is probably sixty or seventy thousand. But this is I want to make it clear that amnesty is not just a question about these draft refusers. It should also be discussed in terms of the the people who were forced to make a decision after they had already found themselves in the armed forces, the people who deserted desert, a broad stack. There are over three hundred thousand people since nineteen sixty five who have received less than honorable discharges from the armed forces, basically because they could no longer go along with the government policy. There are the hundred people in prison. Let's take it one at a time. Three hundred a person

in prison now for three to five hundred persons still in federal prison for drafting. These people should certainly be among the first to be considered for an

amnesty, and they should be the first. Yes, you do agree. I think I have a certain amount of respect for a guy who sticks to his to his principles, who says. I owe my country something, but what you're asking is just too much, and I can imagine situations where I would be in that position and I might go to Canada and or I might go to jail. But I respect someone who has remained held on to his commitment to the to the country. And if we're going to give amnesty or of some sort, perhaps reinstate them to full citizenship because they're felons. Now, that would be fine. After that, we might consider the people who left the country. And after that, or at least separately, consider the people who are in the military and deserted and deserted or or perhaps just sat down and refused to be shipped to people

who went to prison for conscience sake are in the tradition of civil disobedience within the country. It's an honorable tradition that has risks associated with. But they paid the price and therefore should be among the first.

I think most of us have a certain personal respect for the person who's willing to stick it out and take it all the consequences. But the situation is so ambiguous and involves so many different situations. And we finally made the decision that we cannot get involved if there's ever to be an amnesty granted in someone deciding. Well, your reason more noble than his reason. And should you be granted this kind of amnesty while he's granted this? We lost his moral principles are a belief in this set of principles. And we're we're talking about three class three class three broad classes. And not we aren't making individual. Let's define those three, OK? The first class is either OK, military offenders, people who are in the military and and claim that the reason they got in trouble was because they had they were conscientious, conscientious objection to military service or Vietnam in particular. The second class would be people who didn't like the military or specifically Vietnam and who left the country, in other words, somehow broke the law and avoided the court facing the trial. And then the third class would be people who couldn't get a status or perhaps refused to accept legal status because it implied a certain amount of cooperation with the system and went to jail. And people like David Harris, who probably isn't a good example, because I really don't think much of him. But he's but he did go to he did go to jail. And people like that who went to jail, I think if we're going to grant amnesty and we're pretty sure to, they ought to be considered first and and considered most generously. Those are the three broad classes right now. So I'm opposed to setting up any sort of commission to the judge, each X on its draft exile to.

Well, I think there is some kind of review mechanism simply for the purposes of administration is going to be essential. For example, there are many people who are now in Canada who could perfectly legally return to the country now, to whom the Selective Service of statutes no longer apply, whose evasion might have been unnecessary. That's because they have legal remedies available to educated doctors.

Probably the majority of the people who are in Canada today who think that they are violators of the Selective Service law are not the main reason being that the Selective Service system made some error in the processing of the Supreme Court has handed down rulings not only that tend to favor these people. Gentlemen speak well of one of five. Most of them have never been indicted. And I've talked to an FBI agent about who handles these cases. And it's a very complicated they make effort, effort after effort to try to get in touch with somebody and they'll try to trace them through left, no forwarding address after and so forth. And if they can't get hold of it, it's a very last last gasp measure after a person has been reported delinquent by a draft board before they'll be before a warrant for his arrest will be will be issued. And they're the only one, strictly speaking, who can be arrested. The others, a lot of the other people who perhaps get a status now or and have never had an indictment could probably return and fight it out without any. The government reported the Justice Department in hearings before a congressional committee in nineteen seventy, reported that there were twenty six thousand reported violations of the Selective Service law. In nineteen seventy of those twenty six thousand twenty six thousand, only approximately three thousand were ever prosecution prosecuted or filed in court. Of those three thousand, only one thousand were actually convicted. Now there are twenty six twenty six thousand reported violation of reported violations or. Those are recorded for what they did with outstanding indictments, because my department,

only a few hundred outstanding outstanding indictments warrants a warrant for people who

have been let. Let me change the topic just a bit. The Reverend, Mr. Swanson and Mr. Brunk. Mr. Fitzpatrick, what do you say to the argument that amnesty granted by this country, to those who have evaded the draft and of those who have left the military service, would encourage draft refusal in the future and it would be destructive of the morale of the armed services? I think it's largely a moot question because if we can take the president at his word that the draft is going to be ended in mid nineteen seventy three and that's not a problem. Some people have suggested, too, that as far as the question of morale in the armed forces, it's probably not possible for it to get much lower. And the reason for the low morale in the armed forces now is not because of the question of amnesty being batted around, but certainly because of the kind of situation in which we found ourselves in the Vietnam War. I think and I think it would be it would be like saying that when President Johnson granted amnesty to all the Confederates after the Civil War, that he was somehow by that act saying to the people who served honorably that, you know, there's no reason for them to do it. You may as well have joined the rebels, feel free to take up arms against the government. Any time I got to respond here will be in

a good word for the armed forces because I'm involved in the ministry of the churches, to the armed forces and of morale in the forces. As a general thing, I would not make such a statement so sweepingly. Anywhere the morale is good, I would assert that the morale is good and that is going better. There have been difficult times for the Army particularly. It was called upon to do an impossible job in many ways, and that's another subject about which a great deal could be said. You speak about Vietnam? Yes. Yes, I am. But I think that. Too many people find careers in the armed forces. Valuable, useful and instructive with respect to the

rest of their lives. My only point was that the question of morale is directly related to the question of Vietnam and the question of amnesty is directly related to the question of. So when the war is over, then that whole question has become moot because then you're not dealing with the same can be said also as amnesty always deals with this

this kind of question that representatives of the Department of Defense and the veterans organizations and the Selective Service system itself with Qatar have made that an amnesty would have a deleterious effect on the services that the service and so forth. Is the speculation really, and it's in the category of what Lincoln called a pernicious abstraction.

That's a very big. However, there is a real abstraction in the air. The thing is that right here we pretty much agree on what an amnesty is, but it is being promoted by a lot of people who have been opponents of the war for various reasons for quite a while. And they're trying to prove the amnesty issue, suggest or rather imply a judgment upon the upon Vietnam. They're trying to turn it completely into a moral issue and say that the people who was Charles Porter of Amnesty now said the country should. And so we were wrong. And you are right and totally ignoring the the obligations that you feel that can't be done. And I think it's hot on that. Other thing is that as far as the effect of the morale as it might, it'll be just a slight irritant that people are not going to be very few people, if any at all, would be radically turned around by a granting of an amnesty under the right conditions if it is granted with the implication that it is being granted as an exoneration because Vietnam was a horrid moral evil and that the real heroes are the ones who who went to Canada, then that would be terrible. That would really affect it. It would also have the effect that the director Atah said in encouraging people to to to feel free to to evade military service because they're going to go out and. Oh, wait a minute. Because it would because the position that has been advanced by the ACLU and amnesty now is that it's totally a matter of of individual conscience. And what is not thought you might want to tell you want to say it would be that it's totally a matter of individual conscience, of simply choosing not to do this horrible thing and go to Vietnam, which I don't think is is is at all correct, that it's much more complicated if we granted amnesty in terms of of generosity and and affirming through grant actually granting amnesty that we're that the law was valid and that the Society has certain claims on them, then that would be fine. And I'm very sorry, gentlemen. Sean Fitzpatrick, Conrad Brunk and the Reverend Edward Irving Swanson. But our time's up. But I thank you. Yes, it is indeed. Thank you so much for being with us and giving us some insight in your own convictions about amnesty. Thank you, gentlemen, very much.