[Congressional Record Volume 142, Number 15 (Monday, February 5, 1996)]
[Extensions of Remarks]
[Pages E168-E170]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]
BASIS FOR CHARGE THAT BILL CLINTON ``LOATHES'' THE MILITARY
______
HON. ROBERT K. DORNAN
of california
in the house of representatives
Thursday, February 1, 1996
Mr. DORNAN, Mr. Speaker, at your own request, Mr. Gingrich, I am
including the following letters from a young Bill Clinton to his ROTC
draft board adviser Bataan Death March survivor Col. Eugene Holmes, as
well as Colonel Holmes' response 20 years later. Also included are some
of my comments on this issue that you and other Members have requested
be printed in the Record.
[From the Washington Times]
Text of Bill Clinton's Letter to ROTC Colonel
The text of the letter Bill Clinton wrote to Col. Eugene
Holmes, director of the ROTC program at the University of
Arkansas, on Dec. 3, 1969:
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 had 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 just for saving me from the
draft, but for being so kind and decent to me last summer,
when I was as low as I have ever been. One thing which 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 for two years
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 America here
for demonstrations Oct. 15 and Nov. 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
countrymen 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 which 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 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: to maintain my political inability 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 left in which I could possibly, but not
positively, avoid both Vietnam and 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. In fact, I would like to have been able to take a year
out perhaps to teach in a small college or work on some
community
[[Page E169]]
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 nearly 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 in itself and all I seemed to have done was
to protect myself from physical harm. Also, I began to think
I had deceived you, not by lies--there were none--but by
failing to tell you all the things I'm writing now. I doubt
that I had the mental coherence to articulate them then.
At that time, after we had made our agreement and you had
sent my 1-D 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 Sept. 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 on 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 this 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 to understand more clearly how so many
fine people have come to find themselves still loving their
country but loathing the military, to which you and other
good men have devoted years, lifetimes, of the best service
you could give. To many of us, it is no longer clear what is
service and what is disservice, 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 Col. Jones for me.
Merry Christmas.
Sincerely,
Bill Clinton.
____
September 7, 1992.
Memorandum for Record.
Subject: Bill Clinton and the University of Arkansas ROTC
Program.
There have been many unanswered questions as to the
circumstances surrounding Bill Clinton's involvement with the
ROTC department at the University of Arkansas. Prior to this
time I have not felt the necessity for discussing the
details. The reason I have not done so before is that my poor
physical health (a consequence of participation in the Bataan
Death March and the subsequent 3\1/2\ years internment in
Japanese POW camps) has precluded me from getting into what I
felt was unnecessary involvement. However, present polls show
that there is the imminent danger to our country of a draft
dodger becoming the Commander-in-Chief of the Armed Forces of
the United States. While it is true, as Mr. Clinton has
stated, that there were many others who avoided serving their
country in the Vietnam war, they are not aspiring to be the
President of the United States.
The tremendous implications of the possibility of his
becoming Commander-in-Chief of the United States Armed Forces
compels me now to comment on the facts concerning Mr.
Clinton's evasion of the draft.
This account would not have been imperative had Bill
Clinton been completely honest with the American public
concerning this matter. But as Mr. Clinton replied on a news
conference this evening (September 5, 1992) after being asked
another particular about his dodging the draft, ``Almost
everyone concerned with these incidents are dead. I have no
more comments to make''. Since I may be the only person
living who can give a first hand account of what actually
transpired, I am obligated by my love for my country and
my sense of duty to divulge what actually happened and
make it a matter of record.
Bill Clinton came to see me at my home in 1969 to discuss
his desire to enroll in the ROTC program at the University of
Arkansas. We engaged in an extensive, approximately two (2)
hour interview. At no time during this long conversation
about his desire to join the program did he inform me of his
involvement, participation and actually organizing protests
against the United States involvement in South East Asia. He
was shrewd enough to realize that had I been aware of his
activities, he would not have been accepted into the ROTC
program as a potential officer in the United States Army.
The next day I began to receive phone calls regarding Bill
Clinton's draft status. I was informed by the draft board
that it was of interest to Senator Fullbright's office that
Bill Clinton, a Rhodes Scholar, should be admitted to the
ROTC program. I received several such calls. The general
message conveyed by the draft board to me was that Senator
Fullbright's office was putting pressure on them and that
they needed my help. I then made the necessary arrangements
to enroll Mr. Clinton into the ROTC program at the University
of Arkansas.
I was not ``saving'' him from serving his country, as he
erroneously thanked me for in his letter from England (dated
December 3, 1969). I was making it possible for a Rhodes
Scholar to serve in the military as an officer.
In retrospect I see that Mr. Clinton had no intention of
following through with his agreement to join the Army ROTC
program at the University of Arkansas or to attend the
University of Arkansas Law School. I had explained to him the
necessity of enrolling at the University of Arkansas as a
student in order to be eligible to take the ROTC program
at the University. He never enrolled at the University of
Arkansas, but instead enrolled at Yale after attending
Oxford. I believe that he purposely deceived me, using the
possibility of joining the ROTC as a ploy to work with the
draft board to delay his induction and get a new draft
classification.
The December 3rd letter written to me by Mr. Clinton, and
subsequently taken from the files by Lt. Col. Clint Jones, my
executive officer, was placed into the ROTC files so that a
record would be available in case the applicant should again
petition to enter into the ROTC program. The information in
that letter alone would have restricted Bill Clinton from
ever qualifying to be an officer in the United States
Military. Even more significant was his lack of veracity in
purposefully defrauding the military by deceiving me, both in
concealing his anti-military activities overseas and his
counterfeit intentions for later military service. These
actions cause me to question both his patriotism and his
integrity.
When I consider the calabre, the bravery, and the
patriotism of the fine young soldiers whose deaths I have
witnessed, and others whose funerals I have attended . . .
When I reflect on not only the willingness but eagerness that
so many of them displayed in their earnest desire to defend
and serve their country, it is untenable and incomprehensable
to me that a man who was not merely unwilling to serve his
country, but actually protested against its military, should
ever be in the position of Commander-in-Chief of our Armed
Forces.
I write this declaration not only for the living and future
generations, but for those who fought and died for our
country. If space and time permitted I would include the
names of the ones I knew and fought with, and along with them
I would mention my brother Bob, who was killed during World
War II and is buried in Cambridge, England (at the age of 23,
about the age Bill Clinton was when he was over in England
protesting the war).
I have agonized over whether or not to submit this
statement to the American people. But, I realize that even
though I served my country by being in the military for over
32 years, and having gone through the ordeal of months of
combat under the worst of conditions followed by years of
imprisonment by the Japanese, it is not enough. I'm writing
these comments to let everyone know that I love my country
more than I do my own personal security and well-being. I
will go to my grave loving these United States of America and
the liberty for which so many men have fought and died.
Because of my poor physical condition this will be my final
statement. I will make no further comments to any of the
media regarding this issue.
Eugene J. Holmes,
Colonel, U.S.A., Ret.
____
Letters Take the Measure of Two Men
(By Robert K. Dornan)
A couple of years ago, Americans sat transfixed before the
remarkable documentary on the Civil War produced by Ken
Burns. It was the most watched program in the history of
public broadcasting and set new standards of excellence.
Perhaps the most moving and memorable scene occurred at the
end of the first episode, during the reading of a letter
written by Maj. Sullivan Ballou of the 2nd Rhode Island to
his wife Sarah on July 14, 1861. This was a week before the
battle of Manassas in which Ballou, to use Lincoln's phrase,
``gave the full measure of devotion.'' I have yet to meet
anyone who did not have tears in their eyes after hearing
Ballou's beautiful and timeless words.
I thought it might prove enlightening to compare the
feelings and attitudes found in Ballou's letter to those
found in the wartime letter penned by Bill Clinton on Dec. 3,
1969, concerning his being drafted into the military. By that
time, Clinton had used repeated political influence to avoid
the draft and had organized anti-war demonstrations on
foreign soil. It is these events during the fall and winter
of 1969 that make his companionless trip to Moscow and Prague
during the first weeks of 1970 so suspect.
On dying for their country:
Clinton: ``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.''
Ballou: ``I know how * * * great a debt we owe to those who
went before us through the blood and sufferings of the
Revolution. And I am willing--perfectly willing--to lay down
all my joys * * * to pay that debt.''
On the future:
Clinton: ``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.''
[[Page E170]]
Ballou: ``The memories of the blissful moments I have spent
with you come creeping over me, and I feel most gratified to
God and to you that I have enjoyed them so long. And hard it
is for me to give them up and burn to ashes the hopes of
future years when, God willing, we might still have lived and
loved together, and seen our sons grown up to honorable
manhood.''
On sacrifice:
Clinton: ``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: To maintain my political viability within the
system.''
Ballou: ``Sarah, my love for you is deathless, it seems to
bind me with mighty cables that nothing but Omnipotence could
break, and yet my love of country comes over me like a strong
wind and bears me unresistably on with all these chains to
the battle field.''
On agony:
Clinton: ``At that time, after we had made our agreement
and you had sent my 1-D 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.''
Ballou: ``I have, I know, but few and small claims upon
Divine Providence, but something whispers to me--perhaps it
is the wafted prayer of my little Edgar--that I shall return
to my loved ones unharmed. If I do not, my dear Sarah, never
forget how much I love you, and when my last breath escapes
me on the battlefield, it will whisper your name, Forgive my
many faults, and the many pains I have caused you. How
thoughtless and foolish I have oftentimes been! How gladly
would I wash out with my tears every little spot upon your
happiness.''
When you compare the two, it is astonishing that so many
commentators found Clinton's mawkish letter ``thoughtful''
and ``tormented.'' And I often wonder how Ballou--who went
into battle with teenagers--would have reacted to Clinton's
excuse that he was just a 23-year old ``boy'' at the time.
But more to the point. Whereas Ballou's definition of
success is raising ``honorable'' men, Clinton's is a career
in politics. Whereas Ballou found the call of his country to
be more powerful than even his ``deathless'' love for his
wife, Clinton found the call of his country couldn't match
the love he had for * * * himself.
Clearly there is more than just a century that separates
these two men.
____
Camp Clark, Washington,
July 14, 1861.
My Very Dear Sarah: The indications are very strong that we
shall move in a few days--perhaps tomorrow. Lest I should not
be able to write again, I feel impelled to write a few lines
that may fall under your eye when I shall be no more.
I have no misgivings about, or lack of confidence in, the
cause in which I am engaged, and my courage does not halt or
falter. I know how strongly American Civilization now leans
on the triumph of the Government, and how great a debt we owe
to those who went before us though the blood and sufferings
of the Revolution. I am willing--perfectly willing--to lay
down all my joys in this life, to help maintain this
Government, and to pay that debt. . . .
Sarah, my love for you is deathless, it seems to bind me
with might cables that noting but Omnipotence could break;
and yet my love for Country comes over me like a strong wind
and bears me unresistibly on with all these chains to the
battlefield.
The memories of the blissful moments I have spent with you
come creeping over me, and I feel most gratified to God and
you that I have enjoyed them so long. And hard it is for me
to give them up and burn to ashes the hopes of future years,
when God willing, we might still have lived and loved
together, and seen our sons grown up to honorable manhood
around us. I have, I know, but few and small claims upon
Divine providence, but something whispers to me--perhaps it
is the wafted prayer of my little Edgar, that I shall return
to my loved ones unharmed. If I do not, my dear Sarah, never
forget how much I love you, and when my last breath escapes
me on the battlefield, it will whisper your name. Forgive my
many faults, and the many pains I have caused you. How
thoughtless and foolish I have often time been! How gladly
would I wash out with my tears every little spot upon your
happiness. . . .
But, O Sarah! If the dead can come back to this earth and
the unseen around those they loved, I shall always be near
you; in the gladdest days and in the darkest nights . . .
always, always, and if there be a soft breeze upon your
cheek, it shall be my breath, as the cool air fans your
throbbing temple, it shall be my spirit passing by. Sarah, do
not mourn me dead; think I am gone and wait for thee, for we
shall meet again.
____________________