College Group Recommends Program of Six-Month Draft

A new draft program, allowing men including to cuter college to serve actively for only six months, was recommended to the Defense Department yesterday by the Association of Land Grant Colleges and Universities.

The proposal was based on a previous Defense Department plan to draft some men for only six months of active duty and seven and a half years of active reserve duty. These men were to be chosen by lot.

The Association, in a committee headed by J. P. Caldwell, president of the University of Arkansas, suggested that college candidates be given preference under such a plan, and that any further time spent in college ROTC or reserve units be credited against the active reserve requirement.

Report Due Soon

At present, draftees are required to serve in active reserve units after two years of active duty. If the six-month plan were to go into effect, two-year draftees would go into inactive reserves.

Defense officials yesterday generally declined to say whether the Land Grant proposal would be embodied in a forth-coming report to the National Security Council. The Department of Defense, the Office of Defense Mobilization, Selective Service, the Department of Labor, and the Office of the National Security Training Commission have been formulating a new reserve program for the Security Council since May.

Edgar Shelton, executive secretary of the NSTC, said, however, that "the recommendation of the Land Grant colleges will certainly be considered." He added that while preference might not be limited to college students, special provisions might be made in the reserve study report. This should go to the NSC and the President within three weeks, Shelton predicted.

Fleming Recommends Study

Should it receive approval there, the recommendations would then go before Congress.

The entire idea of a six-month plan resulted from a recommendation by Arthur S. Fleming, head of ODM, to study revision of the reserve set-up.