Through the Loophole

Just when the Pentagon seemed on the verge of convincing Congress that it could never fill its manpower quotas without drafting 18-year-olds through a universal military service and training program, the Army announced that it was closing its doors on the most obvious source of available manpower. Unless the world situation suddenly worsens, said Major General Maxwell D. Taylor, the Army's new G3* (assistant chief of staff for operations), the Army will call up no more National Guard divisions or major units of its Organized Reserve.

Members of Congress blinked. So many men were exempted under current draft provisions that Selective Service was already having an all but impossible time filling the Army's monthly calls. "What I have to do," complained Selective Service Chief Lewis Hershey last week, "is to figure out how to raise an armed force . . . without taking anybody." If the Army needed men so badly, why didn't it call up the remaining National Guard divisions and Reserve units first?

The Pentagon was quick to explain. What the Army wanted now was not just manpower, but a certain kind of manpower. Its plans call for 1) 24 divisions under arms, (counting 18 regimental combat teams and the six National Guard divisions which have been federalized since Korea), 2) replacements for the 24 divisions, and 3) enough trained manpower for a sudden, tremendous Army expansion if & when that expansion becomes necessary. There was no need for calling any more National Guard divisions into federal service (though the Army might call a few "comparatively small-sized units"); the Army already has or soon will have its 24-division base. The real need was for new recruits to flesh them out and, after two years in the service, to provide a steady stream of fresh young veterans for the National Guard and Organized Reserve.

But there was one big unplugged hole in the plan. A young man still could enlist in the National Guard as soon as he became 18, thus become exempt from the draft; all those now in the Guard would remain draft-exempt without having-to worry about their division's being called up.

The Pentagon was philosophical about the men it would lose through the loophole, was willing to pay the price to get the long-desired U.M.S.T. under way. This week, in fact, General Omar N. Bradley, chairman of the J.C.S., agreed to a congressional compromise lowering the draft age to 18 1/2 instead of 18.

* Taylor's promotion added another paratrooper to the growing list of airborne officers in the Army's top commands. Others: Major General James M. Gavin, Army representative on the Defense Department's top-level Weapons Evaluation Board; Major General Clovis Byers, G-r on the General Staff; Lieut. General Matthew B. Ridgway, now in command of the Eighth Army in Korea (see Cover).

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