Air Force May Receive Share of Larger Draft

Draft calls will soar to 28,000 a month this summer, and the Air Force, for the first time, may get a share of the draftee manpower pool, according to Selective Service officials in Washington last night.

"We soon may be drafting for the Air Force and Marines," warned Col. William G. McNamara, Selective Service Information Officer. McNamara was contacted by the CRIMSON after the Boston American headlines yesterday reading. "Draft Ends Soon." The paper's article based its optimism on a reduction in the size of the Army and its partial replacement by a stronger Air Force.

Quota Going Up

"Our July quota is 24,000, and we expect to induct 28,000 men a month before the summer is over," McNamara continued. "To assume that a smaller defense role by the Army means the end of the draft," he contended, "omits many other important considerations.

"The boys scared into the Air Force four years ago, during the Army's tough days in Korea, will be getting out this summer, and they aren't being replaced. The Air Force has fallen behind in its enlistment quotas for the last three months," McNamara added, "and it looks as though something will have to be done."

Impossible to Abandon

John Hannah, Assistant Secretary of Defense, has repeatedly stated that the draft must continue almost indefinitely if we are to maintain a 3,000 man defense force. Speaking on the "Youth Wants to Know" TV show last month, he stated that "we have, in effect, UMT now." With only 150,000 men coming of age each year fit for military service, Hannah has called it impossible to abandon and draft even for an all-out UMT program, until 1960 at the earliest.

McNamara's boss, General John Hershey, Director of Selective Service gets his quotas direct from Hannah. Inasmuch as Hannah feels that the Army will continue to gobble up most of next year's draft eligibles, and since the current Bill permits Selective Service through June 30, 1955, the draft seems sure to run at least until then.

"Even if Service-wide enlistments were to soar," McNamara explained, "officials here would credit much of the increase to whatever scare power an active draft program might still have."