Military leaders attempted to confront the crisis that most of us have agreed actually did occur in the vietnam war. I am beth bailey. Ill be moderating this. Sitting next to me is richard hunt who has written the biography of melvin laird. Next to him is bob griffith who is the world expert on the creation of the allvolunteer force. And next to him is jennifer middlestat who has written a really wonderful book called the military welfare state. And i wrote a book called americas army, creating the allvolunteer force. So im at least qualified to be asking questions up here. And there is no way that im going to match in my suavity as moderator. Ill do my best. I think that everyone of us sitting up here would agree that there is no one factor that explains why the United States moved to an allvolunteer force, but at the same time we are sitting here as part of a panel that directly ties the move to military leaders attempts to manage the powers of manpower moral in vietnam. The presumption is that we answered the questions simply by sitting here. I would argue that the suggested link is both misleading and fruitful. And im not sure what the rest of the panelists think. So im going to ask them. And i want to ask each of them to respond to this question. There will be other questions that are a little bit more individual. Maybe well start down at the end with jennifer first. Are we supposed to use the mic . First of all, thank you, beth, for putting this panel together. Im so delighted to be here. Im especially delighted to be here with my copanelists from whom i have learned a great deal including you. All of us. Its a great panel. Yeah, i agree with you. When i saw the question which was whether or not these problems and moral and discipline sort of played a causal role in creating the allvolunteer force, i also thought thats a kind of problematic question. I think while there is no one cause, i think pretty definitively we can say that the answer is no, swael. Just based on the timing of the evidence of the increase in discipline and the increase in problems with moral, we can time that with the on set of the sort of clear policy consensus which begins three quarters of the way or so through or toward the end of 68 when all the president ial candidates announced that they will be ending the draft. And quite simply there isnt yet evidence of a huge moral problem in vietnam. So its certainly not a causal factor. I think it has come to be understood that way. And there is a way the story has been written as one that answered the problems of moral and indiscipline that became evident in the vietnam war. Maybe we can talk a little bit more about why and how that happens. But i dont think that there is any causal role here. We can talk about what some of the other causes are. I dont think its a causal role. Will it influence the shape of the avf . Yes. Will it influence the shape of it . Yes. But its not a causal role. Thanks, jennifer. Im going to disagree slightly. I do see a causal role, because the moral issues and the indiscipline issues that we have been discussing today were already showing up in the army as a hole. And the armys leadership was concerned about that in trying to figure out one of the best ways to deal with it. But i will point out who wrote a very good history of the end of the draft and the beginning of the all volunteer force identified five reasons. First about American History has been a volunteer army. We only had draft armys in world war i. Im not going to talk about the civil war. World war i and world war ii. And for a brief period after world war ii encompassing the korean war. Then they another reason was that by the 60s, the size of the eligible population for conscription was so large that they couldnt draft everybody. In fact, the issue became who serves when all cannot serve . And there were so many deferments added and exemptions added to the law that by that time, there were more reasons not to serve that a person wouldnt have to serve than theyd have to serve. People increasingly began to realize what the inequity was there. There was a body of thought that legitimized. There was another issue was that the war obviously was increasingly unpopular. There is no doubt about that. In that sense, its that becomes one of the approximate cause causes. Finally, i think ive only said four. Ill skip one. Finally, the army itself had lost confidence in the draft. They were having increasing problems with the draft and with the problems of draftees serving in the force. And they were looking for ways to manage manpower absent the draft. Ill stop there. My focus was looking in my book on laird as secretary of defense. The issue of ending the draft and with nixon and with laird i think was a political one. Laird came into the position of secretary of defense, former politician, understands the law is incredibly unpopular, is looking ahead about the war is going to end and i have to be responsible for building the armed forces up and preparing them for after the war. I think there was also within the American Population a group of different groups who are opposing the draft system. There were civil libitarians who didnt like the draft because it was infringing on personal liberties. And people wanted to reform the draft and make it a much fairer and more equitable. A free market economist who objected to compulsery military service at wages below market wages. So they turned out to be a very persuasive group wen the commission which was set up by nixon in 1969 to study whether to go to an allvolunteer force. And i think it should be mentioned, weve talked about most moral issues and that sort of thing this morning. But the vietnam war also exacted a heavy toll on military institutions, the war fighters equipment, moral, stocks of supplies. It also had a weakening effect on military alliances. One of the things as secretary of defense to get people into vietnam was to pull out troops and equipment from units in europe. I think just to reiterate, lairds perspective and i think nixons too was we want a political component dampening the antiwar protests and ending the draft and moving to an allvolunteer force as a component is an important part of that. Well, lets did you want to id like to go back to a couple of points, too. As richard said, nixon saw this as a political maneuver essentially to put off the antiwar youth folk that he could capture the youth folk that by promising to end the draft this would be a good thing. He accepted the argument of freedman and some of his disciples who were well placed in the government, one of whom was Martin Anderson who was a disciple of freedman and became one of his chief counselors and kept the issue in front of nixon and reminded him right after he was elected that he had promised to end the draft, and pushed him until he announced that he was going to do so. He said he was going to cut the come up with a plan he had a deadline and i think the commission had to be finished with this work by may of 1969. So nixon was very serious. I think the political component was very strong in nixons mind. So the question that i was trying to get to ask was about nixons attitudes about ending the draft. And i still want to ask that question a little bit for a more focussed discussion, because its 2 1 2 weeks before the president ial election in 1968. And for those of you in the room old enough to remember 1968, it was a period of division and chaos and violence in american society. And nixon goes on National Radio and makes a pledge at the height of the commitment of u. S. Troops to vietnam that hes going to end the draft. Obviously, hes not going to end the draft while we still have Ground Combat troops in vietnam. This is a big step. And what weve been talking about today so far has been very much about the experiences within vietnam. To some extent, its almost as if there is this isolated entity where the war is being fought and isnt connected to the politics domestic or geopolitical. Its simply the war itself and the moral of those men and the small number of women who are fighting who are in vietnam. So to what extent does it make sense for us to talk about what weve been talking about today, moral and manpower in vietnam without thinking more about the domestic pressures that exists . And so can we say a little bit more about what nixons motivations were when he looked out at the country, how much was he looking to vietnam . How much was he looking to the domestic politics . Why after making this brash promise essentially, he had no sign on from anybody that mattered, none of the generals, nobody in the office of the secretary of defense. And he moved forward. So i would just like to hear a little bit more about what you think the motivations were. I would agree with my co panelists that the motivation seems primarily political from nixons perspective. But i think this also gives us the opportunity to think about just how powerful a role domestic politics plays in this. When we think about how much the army, though, it may have been asking about its policies and thinking about the fact really was quite taken by surprise and appalled at the idea that as they were involved in an increasingly difficult war, they would also be tasked with coming up with a plan for ending a draft and returning to some kind of volunteer force. The return is probably not the right word. It actually took on quite a different shape than previous eras in the volunteer force. So you know i think in multiple ways today weve been having discussions about whats going on in vietnam without appreciating the many different ways that domestic politics were impacting what was happening in theater. I think this is one of those ways. It ended up in my book about the armys reaction in particular. It was just flat fear at the idea that nixon had made this announcement. And now it was a bipartisan consensus with support from the american populist that the draft would have to end when it looked like there was no end in sight really for the war. So it really put them in this incredibly difficult position. And it may also this is one of the things we havent talked about one of the things that we havent really talked about is the degree to which the decision to end the draft itself plays into the moral and discipline problems. I mean, we have been talking about it more in terms of military strategy and whether or not there is a sense that you can win the war. But what does it also mean to announce that you are going to end the draft, but then still be a draftee, thinking about those impacts in vietnam. The process is very interesting and i think revealing. Before nixon made his speech in october he had already read the handwriting on the wall. He ordered a close holed study in the office of the chief of staff on whether and how we could end the draft if it was geeg to happen anyway. It didnt have to be on the wrong side of the decision. And hes been historically the conventional wisdom is the army is dragged kicking and screaming into the allvolunteer force. They had already studied it. And the staff action officer who did the initial staff report reported in december of 68 that it was feasible if properly resourced. And then westmoreland ordered a fullscale study called operation provide to look at the whole thing. Following the report in the initial report in march of 69, then the d. O. D. Got into action and had its own study. And once the report was that report was rendered, the military was more or less ready once the orders were given to start its process. And that i think is very different from what most people understand. I would note a couple of things regarding to followup with bob. In 1965, just before d. O. D. Did a study of the draft. One of the recommendations they were thinking about was an allvolunteer force. That study was put on the shelf because of the buildup in vietnam. In 1968 in october, again, not referring to discipline problems, alford fit who is the assistant secretary of defense from reserve affairs initiated a study on his own on how to reduce or eliminate conscription. He stayed in office. Wanted to seize that issue and come up with a way to approach the problem of ending the draft. So one thing that we all learned by going through these records is that there was an awful lot of preparation, just in case fingers crossed. A lot of forward thinking about contingencies. And my question here is there are many different circumstances in which one could move from conscription force to an allvolunteer force. And this might have been the most challenging possible moment to do so given the failing war in vietnam, given the decreasing respect of much of the American Population for its military, given the lack of interest in many young people to serve. Try to prepare for what the army was going to mean recruiting 20 to 30,000 people a month which is quite striking when you compare it to the recruiting short falls today. The commission advocated ending by 1979. Laird, nixon and secretary reese have said no, thats too soon. Were still fighting a war. We just cant stop recruiting people until we have a system in place that works and is funded. That was a critical thing to make sure they got money from congress to pay for the higher salaries. That was one of the ways that they thought they were going to make the allvolunteer force succeed was to make military service more attractive, not just in terms of pay, but eliminate a lot of the duties. More freedom in the barics. And the army studied this program. At the same time, it just has the program. Hes pulling people out of vietnam to save money. So hes kind of its kind of a very delicate balancing act of cutting the forces in vietnam and he instituted a policy of lower draft calls. But he didnt want the draft ended until there was an allvolunteer system in place that was going to work and had a chance to succeed, because he realized he was still responsible for making sure there was enough. Thats right. The armys plan up to that point was they would not start to shift to a zero draft posture until the war was over, but laird and nixon accelerated that time table so that there was to be no further drafts by 1973. One of the things in response to that was to create a program manager, if you will, for this high level, highly respected general officer who is going to manage the whole thing. O outside of the normal staffing procedures. And that general was Lieutenant General george forscythe who was considered to be something of a maverick and highly respected because he developed the air mobile concept. Air mobile Test Division to vietnam, had it refragged and was the first commander. He was highly respected for that. Westmoreland gave an incredible latitude to go directly to west moreland if he had an issue in implementing the plans and the secretary of the army. A and between the two of them, they created the office which in turn created a test bed which became known as volar, the volunteer army where they came up in the process with what forscythe called 172 670 jim dandy things that they were going to experiment with throughout the army. This included low cost a, no cost activities such as ending mandatory formations and allowing to partition barics and decorate them to taste. You can imagine what that resulted in. It addressed ending some things. Up and down the army staff, westmore nd opposed it but accepted it because he realized this was going to deal with a major irritation to troops. And last ly five day weeks, enlisted mens council where the officer would sit in on a rap session. The army staff hated this because they said it amounted to a Soldiers Union where they would be able to question activities by the commanding staff. He also had a major upheaval and increase in funding for the recruiting command because even if they were going to go to an allvolunteer army, they were still going to have to recruit people using the term and the last thing i will just mention is experimenting with paid Television Advertising for recruiting. So i think i would just highlight maybe two issues related to this. I think one of the major challenges is a budgetary challenge. One of the things thats happening domestically politically within the United States is that congress is seriously questioning the military budget beginning in the early 1970s. And theyre doing so i think both because of high ongoing costs of the war but also the anticipated costs of the shift to the allvolunteer force. So trying to make in the many ways it is a challenging moment to make the switch to the volunteer force. How will we have the higher pay and be able to extend military benefits to all ranks if we want to recruit a volunteer force. These budgetary questions are very serious in the vietnam era. The other thing that i want to talk about maybe a little bit is how when we think about the discussion weve been having so far today which is about questions of discipline, moral, permissiveness in vietnam, the problems of Racial Discrimination in vietnam, these same issues are actually the issues that project would provide. Framing them in an utterly different way. Why is it okay to have rap sessions and to have long hair to divide your barics to drink beer in the barics if were talking about them. It is okay. If were talking about them in the context of recruiting a volunteer force. They become discipline problems in the context of vietnam. These are happening almost simultaneously. So the rates for the increasing indiscipline and perceived problems surrounding Racial Discrimination in vietnam are 69, 70, 71, 72. These are the this is exactly the same years when the army is experimenting with and trying to decide how it can, in fact, become more permissive. How it can, in fact, become less discriminatory, how it can offer other channels outside of kind of old style hierarchy in command or in addition to those. For me, its a kind of what is the right its a parallel world or something where the same issues that are problems in vietnam are being treated like problems to intelligently solve on the homefront in order to recruit and retain the necessary numbers that youll need for the volunteer force. Maybe thats something that we can have a discussion about as we go forward. I want to chime in on the hair issue. Survey, it was less than nine months after hamburger hill. I think it was plurality of soldiers said their biggest concern was hair which is just hard to believe. Following up on what jennifer said, thinking about the ways in which, its not just a problem to be solved, but these are advertised benefits. The same thing is being complained about. There are parallel tracks. So i guess the question to followup with there is there is a sense there is a crisis of moral in vietnam. And its plamed on a whole variety of different things. We have had a lot of interesting smart discussion of that today. There is also a narrative of crisis for the allvol