Draft lottery (1969)

Method

The days of the year, represented by the numbers from 1 to 366 (including Leap Day), were written on slips of paper and the slips were placed in plastic capsules. The capsules were mixed in a shoebox and then dumped into a deep glass jar. Capsules were drawn from the jar one at a time.

The first day number drawn was 257 (September 14), so all registrants with that birthday were assigned lottery number 1. Men of draft age (those born between 1944 and 1950) whose birthday fell on the corresponding day of the year would all be drafted at the same time. The highest draft number called from the 1969 lottery was number 195 (September 24).

A secondary lottery was also held on the same day, to construct a random permutation of the 26 letters of the alphabet. For men born on a given day, the order of induction was determined by the rank of the first letters of their last, first, and middle names.

The lottery was conducted again in 1970 (for those born in 1951), 1971 (1952) and 1972 (1953), although the 1972 lottery went unused as the draft itself was suspended in 1973. Lotteries were also conducted in 1973, 1974 and 1975 although the assigned numbers went unused.

History and consequences

The draft lottery was first and foremost a complicated and not so much a sophisticated process that confused the population, specifically the people concerned in the contest. Consequences were felt all over America on the short-term as well as for a long period of time. The military draft during the Vietnam era built resentment towards military involvement of the United States in wars abroad, especially when they were specifically threatening for the American people but more so to the ideology of democracy and the 'free-thinking' society the American government preaches.

In the late 1960s, President Nixon established a commission to study what the best option was to get more military manpower, to keep the current drafting methods or institute a volunteer military. After much debate within the Nixon administration and the Congress, it was decided that an all-volunteer force was feasible, affordable, and would enhance the nation’s security. According to the department of defense in 2003, an all-volunteer force is and would have been more cost-efficient.

The 1960s period in the United States was a time of revolution, beginning with the Civil Rights Movement which set the standards for practices by the anti-war movement.

In 1968, more than any other year, young American men were drafted to join the military service; over 536 100 men were drafted, a jump from the preceding year's numbers of 485 600 men. Question arose as to why the military needed to implement a draft lottery if the numbers were at their highest. The year of the draft lottery, 1969, the Vietnam troop levels went down to 475 200 and from then on continued to fall under the end of the draft in 1973 when it closed at 24 200.

In 1969, the draft lottery only encouraged the growth of the resentment of the war in Vietnam, and the draft. The anti-war movement all over America took a turn for the worst. People decried its discriminating ways "against low-education, low-income, underprivileged members of societyIt was quickly noticed that draft ranks were not uniformly distributed over the year. In particular, birthdays in December had lower (earlier) draft ranks, on average, than birthdays in other months. This led to complaints that the lottery was not random as the legislation required. Analysis of the lottery method suggested that the procedure (mixing the capsules in the shoe box and dumping them into the jar) did not mix the capsules sufficiently; however, the less-than-random lottery was allowed to stand.

Another consequence of the draft lottery is that draftees are more likely to quit or to leave their post after their two-year service. The turn-over made military expenses rise because of the training of new drafted members as well as higher ranked officers.

The draft lottery had social and economic consequences; draft evaders or 'dodgers', who were generally young, well-educated, healthy men, left the country and could have contributed positively in the American society and economy if not for the draft. These draft evaders chose to move north to Canada, who was not involved in the Vietnam conflict, or chose to face the legal sanctions of not attending military service, showing their disapproval by either burning their draft cards or letters or just simply not presenting themselves at the military service test. Numbers of American citizens to have escaped to Canada during the Vietnam war because of the draft is set to be around 125 000, although half are said to have returned to the United States after the Nixon era.

The lottery was improved in the following years, but public discontent only continue to grow until the draft ended on July 1st 1973.

Modification

In the 1970 and subsequent draft lotteries, a different method was used. Scientists at the National Bureau of Standards randomly prepared 78 permutations of the numbers from 1 to 365, using random numbers selected from published sources.

From the 78 permutations, 25 were selected at random and translated to calendars using 1 = January 1, 365 = December 31, etc. The calendars were sealed into envelopes. 25 more permutations were selected and left untranslated and sealed into 25 more envelopes. The 50 envelopes were furnished to the Selective Service System.

On 29 June, an official picked one of the calendar envelopes and one of the permutation envelopes. The 365 days of the year were written down and placed into capsules and put in a drum in the order dictated by the contents of the calendar envelope. Similarly, the numbers from 1 to 365 were written down and placed into capsules in the order dictated by the permutation in the permutation envelope.

On 1 July, the drawing date, one drum was rotated for an hour and the other for a half-hour (its rotating mechanism failed).

Pairs of capsules were then drawn, one from each drum. The first date out of the drum with the date capsules was September 16; the first number drawn from the drum with the numbers was 139. Thus men born on September 16th were drafted in 139th order. The 11th draws were the date July 9 and the number 1, so men born on July 9 were drafted first.

References

• S.E. Fienberg. "Randomization and Social Affairs: The 1970 Draft Lottery". Science, volume 171, pages 255-261 (1971). (Cited by Starr as the "best and most comprehensive" article on the topic)
• D.E. Rosenbaum. "Statisticians Charge Draft Lottery Was Not Random," New York Times, January 4, 1970, p. 66.
• Selective Service System: History and Records
• Norton Starr. "Nonrandom Risk: The 1970 Draft Lottery". Journal of Statistics Education, volume 5, number 2 (1997). (Also available on-line: Contains a lesson plan for statistics class using the 1970 and 1971 draft lottery data)

External links

• The numbers and other info about the draft lotteries for 1969, 1970, 1971, 1972
• The Military Draft and 1969 Draft Lottery for the Vietnam War (News stories from the period)
• Introduction to Graphs (List of draft ranks, additional analysis)
• Frank Asaro - Asteroid Impacts: The Inside Story (Mentions the shoebox in passing)