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Bill Clintons Draft Dodger Letter
As Entered in Congressional Record (Page: H5550) 7/30/93
Dear Col. Holmes,
I am sorry to be so long in writing. I know I promised to let you hear from me at least once
a month, and from now on you will, but I have to have some time to think about this first
letter. Almost daily since my return to England I have thought about writing, about what I
want to and ought to say.
First, I want to thank you, not only for saving me from the draft, but for being so kind to me
last summer, when I was as low as I have ever been. One thing that made the bond we
struck in good faith somewhat palatable to me was my high regard for you personally. In
retrospect, it seems that the admiration might not have been mutual had you known a little
more about me, about my political beliefs and activities. At least you might have thought
me more fit for the draft than for ROTC.
Let me try to explain. As you know, I worked in a very minor position on the Senate
Foreign Relations Committee. I did it for the experience and the salary but also for the
opportunity, however small, of working every day against a war I opposed and despised
with a depth of feeling I had reserved solely for racism in America before Vietnam. I did
not take the matter lightly but studied it carefully, and there was a time when not many
people had more information about Vietnam at hand than I did.
I have written and spoken and marched against the war. One of the national organizers of
the Vietnam Moratorium is a close friend of mine. After I left Arkansas last summer, I
went to Washington to work in the national headquarters of the Moratorium, then to
England to organize the Americans here for demonstrations October 15 and November 16.
Interlocked with the war is the draft issue, which I did not begin to consider separately until
early 1968. For a law seminar at Georgetown I wrote a paper on the legal arguments for
and against allowing, within the Selective Service System, the classification of selective
conscientious objection, for those opposed to participation in a particular war, not simply to
"participation in war in any form."
From my work, I came to believe that the draft system itself is illegitimate. No government
really rooted in limited, parliamentary democracy should have the power to make its
citizens fight and kill and die in a war they may oppose, a war which even possibly may be
wrong, a war, which in any case, does not involve immediately the peace and freedom of
the nation. The draft was justified in World War II because the life of the people
collectively was at stake.
Individuals had to fight, if the nation was to survive, for the lives of their country and their
way of life. Vietnam is no such case. Nor was Korea an example where, in my opinion,
certain military action was justified but the draft was not, for the reasons stated above.
Because of my opposition to the draft and the war, I am in great sympathy with those who
are not willing to fight, kill, and maybe die for their country (i.e. the particular policy of a
particular government) right or wrong. Two of my friends at Oxford are conscientious
objectors. I wrote a letter of recommendation for one of them to his Mississippi draft
board, a letter I am more proud of than anything else I wrote at Oxford last year. One of
my roommates is a draft resister who is possibly under indictment and may never be able
to go home again. He is one of the bravest, best men I know. His country needs men like
him more than they know. That he is considered a criminal is an obscenity.
The decision not to be a resister and the related subsequent decisions were the most
difficult of my life. I decided to accept the draft in spite of my beliefs for one reason only,
to maintain my political viability within the system. For years I have worked to prepare
myself for a political life characterized by both practical political ability and concern for
rapid social progress. It is a life I still feel compelled to try to lead. I do not think our
system of government is by definition corrupt, however dangerous and inadequate it has
been in recent years. (The society may be corrupt, but that is not the same thing, and if
that is true we are all finished anyway.)
When the draft came, despite political convictions, I was having a hard time facing the
prospect of fighting a war I had been fighting against, and that is why I contacted you.
ROTC was the one way in which I could possibly, but not positively, avoid both Vietnam
and the resistance. Going on with my education, even coming back to England, played no
part in my decision to join ROTC. I am back here, and would have been at Arkansas Law
School because there is nothing else I can do. I would like to have been able to take a year
out perhaps to teach in a small college or work on some community action project and in
the process to decide whether to attend law school or graduate school and how to begin
putting what I have learned to use.
But the particulars of my personal life are not near as important to me as the principles
involved. After I signed the ROTC letter of intent I began to wonder whether the
compromise I had made with myself was not more objectionable than the draft would have
been, because I had no interest in the ROTC program itself and all I seem to have done
was to protect myself from physical harm. Also, I had begun to think that I had deceived
you, not by lies--there were none--but by failing to tell you all of the things I'm telling you
now. I doubt I had the mental coherence to articulate them then.
Page 2.
At that time, after we had made our agreement and you had sent my 1D deferment to my
draft board, the anguish and loss of my self regard and self confidence really set in. I
hardly slept for weeks and kept going by eating compulsively and reading until exhaustion
brought sleep. Finally, on September 12 I stayed up all night writing a letter to the
chairman of my draft board, saying basically what is in the preceding paragraph, thanking
him for trying to help in a case where he really couldn't, and stating that I couldn't do the
ROTC after all and would he please draft me as soon as possible.
I never mailed the letter, but I did carry it with me every day until I got on the plane to
return to England. I didn't mail the letter because I didn't see, in the end, how my going in
the army and maybe going to Vietnam would achieve anything except a feeling that I had
punished myself and gotten what I deserved. So I came back to England to try to make
something of the second year of my Rhodes scholarship.
And that is where I am now, writing to you because you have been good to me and have a
right to know what I think and feel. I am writing too in the hope that my telling this one
story will help you understand more clearly how so many fine people have come to find
themselves loving their country but loathing the military, to which you and other good men
have devoted years, lifetimes and the best service you could give. To many of us, it is no
longer clear what is service and what is dis-service, or if it is clear, the conclusion is likely
to be illegal.
Forgive the length of this letter. There was much to say. There is still a lot to be said, but it
can wait. Please say hello to Colonel Jones for me. Merry Christmas.
Sincerely,
Bill Clinton
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