Clinton and the Vietnam Draft: The Problem That Just Won’t Die : Campaign: Like the war itself, the governor’s draft record remains a festering sore. But the nation might not be ready to confront issues raised.

They stomped on it in February, smothered it in April and drove a stake through its heart in August, but the issue of Bill Clinton and the Vietnam War draft will not die. His alleged sins were committed 23 years ago, and the war he tried to escape was despised by many of his fellow citizens. So why have the Republicans been able to make so much political hay out of the subject? Why does candidate Clinton erupt or panic whenever it re-emerges? Why has the press signed on for the duration?

One reason is that Clinton has handled the issue with such atypical bumbling. The larger reason is that Clinton’s draft dilemmas mirror our larger reluctance to come clean on Vietnam.

Granted, the governor has made a mess of this one. Up until this year, he claimed simply that he had been eligible for the draft but just hadn’t been called. Now, piece by piece, a far more complicated story has emerged.

In 1968, after college, he was classified 1-A. But because of his connections, Clinton’s draft board put off calling him. He was able to take up his Rhodes scholarship to Oxford.

At Oxford, in the spring of 1969, he finally received an induction notice. But at home that summer he got a deferment, after pressure was put on the University of Arkansas ROTC director. Clinton promised to attend Arkansas law school and signed up for ROTC there, but in the fall he went back to Oxford.

In October, President Richard M. Nixon announced that there would be no new 1969 draft calls, that drafted graduate students could finish their school year and that there would be a draft lottery. Either because Clinton resigned from ROTC or because he did not enroll at Arkansas, the draft board reclassified him 1-A on Oct. 30. On Dec. 1, Clinton’s high number put him out of danger.

Two days later, Clinton wrote his now-famous thank-you letter to the ROTC director. In it, Clinton said that “the draft system itself is illegitimate” and that he had finally made himself available for the draft for “one reason: to maintain my political viability within the system.”

Much of this story had to be pulled out of Clinton. He did not tell about the campaigns in 1968 and 1969 to keep him from the draft. He never mentioned that he had actually gotten an induction notice before joining the ROTC. He claimed he had finally accepted the draft because of dead high-school friends; then came news of his 1969 letter.

Clinton seems to have repeatedly avoided saying that he thought both the war and the draft illegitimate and believed it was OK to pull the most elaborate strings to avoid them. Today, Clinton’s natural supporters on the draft issue are those who, like him, despised the war and the system that waged it. But is it asking too much to expect them to defend Clinton for concealing these views as if they were not respectable? Without any real defenders, Clinton is alone--a large and permanent target.

Clinton has said that his inconsistencies occurred because he forgot the facts and had to play “catch-up.” But he has usually done a great job of answering attacks; it’s strange he was so unprepared for the most potentially hurtful charge.

This failure seems less strange when we understand that there was, and is, no way for Clinton to give a plausible, coherent account of his conduct without stirring up deeply resentful memories in many people--not a majority of voters, but enough.

Clinton wrote movingly to the ROTC director about principles. A nation, he said, has no right to make people fight wars they disagree with. He wrote of a draft-resister friend, “He is one of the bravest, best men I know. His country needs men like him more than they know. That he is considered a criminal is an obscenity.” Clinton wrote that he even worried about his own “political viability” for principled reasons: “I have worked to prepare myself for a political life characterized by . . . concern for rapid social progress.”

Here is the logic of Clinton’s case: The government is pursuing a profoundly wrong war. Young people who believe this must not obey in the traditional manner but instead disobey, following their principles and using their skills to change policy so there will be no war.

Here is the opposing case: Political elites have always made wars, ordinary citizens have fought them and privileged young men have gotten special deals that keep them out of harm’s way.

But with Vietnam, the argument continues, the privileged young insist it is the brightest of them who understand the war’s horror and, if they avoid the draft, their talent will save everyone else. In other words, the fine young men not only scramble to safety but claim a moral and intellectual superiority in doing so.

The gap between these two views has tortured this country for more than 20 years. We hear echoes of the old battle when Clinton’s opponents say that someone who thought himself above the “illegitimate” system should not be allowed to order other citizens to suspend judgment and march obediently into battle. Clinton cannot give an unvarnished account of his actions during the war without ripping the wound open again.

Maybe the gap has closed enough, and other issues are important enough, to let Clinton be elected President. Or maybe it is so deep that the anti-war generation is sentenced to spend its life wandering in the wilderness, without being allowed into the presidential promised land.