Kennedy Proposes Draft Overhaul, Hits Graduate School Deferments

Senator Edward M. Kennedy '54 recommended ending the draft-exempt status of graduate students in a Senate speech yesterday.

The proposal was part of a five point program in which Kennedy called for a complete overhaul of the present draft system.

The Kennedy resolution concentrated heavily on the question of student deferments. "Military service is a burden of our way of life, and it should be born equally," he said.

John P. Elder, Dean of the Graduate School of Arts and Sciences, said yesterday he had "great sympathy for Senator Kennedy's proposal." "I do not live easily," he said, "with the notion that graduate school can be a refuge from military service."

Kennedy also declared his intention to investigate reports from various colleges and universities that many of their students are in college not to get an education but to avoid the draft. Elder's reaction to this was: "I think such reports are unproven and unprovable."

Kennedy's plan is the most comprehensive offered Congress since the debate on a new draft system began last year. The plan includes:

--Reducing the autonomy of local and state boards by establishing national criteria and priorities for induction.

--Setting up a nation-wide lottery, and drafting the youngest men first.

--Eliminating the "crazy-quilt pattern of deferment" for graduate students, and, in time of war or national emergency, for undergraduates as well.

--Lowering mental and physical standards to privide for "non-combat, limited assignments."