SHOULD draft resisters and deserters be given amnesty? Or should they continue to be prosecuted and forced to remain in exile? The question is one of the most difficult the country confronts as the bitter war winds to its conclusion. Until recently, even longtime opponents of the war have shied away from this emotionally charged issue. President Nixon, his chin outthrust, answered the question with one firm word—no—at a press conference in November. But with an end to the war in sight and an all-volunteer Army on the near horizon, the topic is gaining currency. Ohio's Republican Senator Robert Taft Jr., a Republican with impeccable credentials, went so far last month as to introduce a bill to grant amnesty to draft resisters—with the stiff provision that it be coupled with three years in compensatory military or civilian federal service.
Others would go much further.
Groups are being formed round the country to bring pressure to bear on Congress and the Administration to grant amnesty, and the American Civil Liberties Union is opening an office in New York this week to coordinate their efforts. The question may be one of the emotional issues of the presidential campaign. Though the Democratic front runner, Senator Edmund Muskie, believes that the matter should not even be discussed until the war is over, other Democratic contenders, Senator George McGovern and New York's Mayor John Lindsay, have taken positions in direct opposition to Nixon. McGovern has announced that if he is elected, he will grant amnesty to all draft resisters (but, like Taft, he would not give it to deserters). Lindsay has taken a position similar to Taft's, though he would require two, rather than three years of work in the national interest.
The new youth vote will probably favor amnesty. "If a candidate expects to have young people going door to door in his behalf, he'd better get right on amnesty," says Charles Porter, a former Congressman from Oregon and head of the National Committee for Amnesty Now. Many older people, especially those who have had sons in Viet Nam, would undoubtedly be just as vehemently against it. The political advantages on either side are difficult to assess, but on balance, it seems that this year a position that favors complete amnesty, without some kind of compensatory work, would be a political minus that could cost any candidate votes from the center.
Yet the issue itself transcends politics and comes down to a basic moral question: Is amnesty justified under the circumstances?