Army Cuts ROTC For Grad Schools

First Army Headquarters announced yesterday that all law school students and most graduate students who have not completed two years of military science training are no longer eligible for any Army Reserve Officer Training (ROTC) program.

Of the 143 Harvard students who had applied to the Army ROTC two-year program approximately 120 will be eliminated by this new ruling.

Maj. John P. Hess, adjutant of Harvard's Army ROTC unit, said that this decision is "apparently in the spirit of the new draft ruling."

Specifically "law and graduate students will be affected by this new directive," he said, "although certain graduates pursuing disciplines for which the Army has a critical need may be able to get into the two-year program."

The "critical disciplines" will not be known until details are received from First Army, possibly later today.

Harvard students immediately felt the effects of the new ruling. Three law school students who were taking an aptitude test for admittance to Army ROTC were told not to finish, and that no more graduate school applications would be processed at that time.

NROTC Responds

Harvard's Naval Science Department quickly responded to speculation that eligibility for admission to Navy ROTC will be similarly limited.

Cdr. Alvin R. Timm, associate professor of Naval Sciences, said "As far as I know, the Navy has not indicated to us that it is contemplating a move of this nature at the present."

Since the Johnson Administration's recent draft ruling, the number of graduate students applying to Harvard's Army and Navy ROTC programs has increased greatly.

As of last Saturday, graduate applications to Navy ROTC had risen from 10 to 35. By late yesterday afternoon, the number of Harvard graduate students applying to Army ROTC had reached 140. Last year only 23 law and grad students applied to Army ROTC.