The Quality of Mercy

WITH ITS FINAL deadline only two weeks away, the Ford administration's ill-conceived draft evasion Clemency Board has taken to the airwaves in a last-ditch effort to lure takers.

In 30 and 60-second television and radio advertisements, Father Theodore Hesburgh, president of Notre Dame and a member of the board, tells the public: "You may recall that I spoke out for a long time against the Vietnam War. Now I'm also working with the President's Clemency Board.... It's an honest program that protects your rights and integrity, or I wouldn't be a part of it."

The idea seems to be the same as that promulgated by hundreds of American corporations: No matter how bad the product, advertise the hell out of it and the public will buy. It uses all the common marketing tactics--credible speaker (would a man of the cloth lie to you?); me-tooism ("I didn't like the war, you didn't like the war, so I've got to be right"); and inflated description ("It's an honest program that protects your rights and integrity..."). And like most other advertising, it underestimates the ability of the public to critically evaluate what it's trying to sell.

To date, only about 900--or 1 per cent--of the 90,000 people eligible for clemency have asked for it. It's enough to make a marketing director turn gray.

But trying to sell the clemency board is like trying to sell Ford's namesake, the Edsel--it's ugly in design, operates poorly, and doesn't have what the people want.

The Ford administration apparently isn't yet willing to recognize that most draft resisters and evaders of the Vietnam War era don't feel they've done anything they need clemency for--and they haven't. They offered legitimate resistance to an illegitimate war.

The exiles are the less injured victims of the high government officials who sent more dutiful and equally well-meaning American boys to their deaths, who used them to kill equally innocent Vietnamese boys and girls and to destroy large parts of Indochina, and who are now supplying the wherewithal for the destruction of much of the rest. Apart from their right to live in peace in their own country, the country needs the exiles.

A program that asks draft resisters to come back and beg for mercy while the men behind the war machine remain in power, and then serve two years of alternate service while watching Henry Kissinger '50 flying back and forth selling bombs and planes, lacks honesty, integrity, and all the other things Father Hesburgh seems to be pushing.

Henry Ford, after looking at the disaster he had on his hands, pulled back and offered "a better idea." When January ends with the Clemency Board in shambles, the Ford Administration should take that cue and introduce a 1975 model with unconditional amnesty.