[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.

                          ____________________