Less than 24 hours after taking the oath of office, President Carter fulfilled one of his key campaign pledges: he pardoned the Viet Nam draft evaders. His order covered an estimated 10,000 men already convicted (only seven of whom are still in prison), an additional 2,500 still under indictment, and an undetermined number who never registered for the draft. More than 2,000 who had fled abroad will now be free to return home.
Carter's pardon was carefully limited. He excluded those few draft dodgers who had used "force and violence" to stay out of uniform. More important, he did not forgive the...
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