Roanoke Times
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: SATURDAY, February 15, 1992 TAG: 9202170210
SECTION: EDITORIAL PAGE: A-11 EDITION: METRO
SOURCE:
DATELINE: LENGTH: Medium
THE GHOSTS OF CANDIDATES' PASTS
TWO DECADES have come and gone, and the world has seen other wars. But it is Vietnam that haunts much of America - and American politics. So much for Desert Storm putting Vietnam behind us.One of the Democratic candidates in Tuesday's New Hampshire primary, Nebraska Sen. Bob Kerrey, lost a leg in Vietnam, and won the Medal of Honor. He's been criticized for making too much of his wartime heroism. As his campaign lags, it may symbolize for some vets the rejection they felt in the 1970s, when they came home without hoopla.
Another candidate, Arkansas Gov. Bill Clinton, may pay a political price for not going to war.
The Clinton campaign already had been diverted by over-publicized allegations of past marital infidelity; allegations previously acknowledged in the abstract, but denied with regard to the specific claim by one Gennifer Flowers. This week, the campaign found itself dealing with disclosure of a 1969 letter from the young Clinton to a University of Arkansas ROTC official, thanking him for "saving me from the draft."
In the letter, dated one day after he learned he had drawn a high number in the nation's first draft lottery, Clinton said he had decided to re-enter the draft pool a few weeks after being approved for ROTC for two reasons: moral concern that he had compromised his principles to "protect myself from physical harm" and a desire to "maintain my political viability within the system."
"For years," he wrote, "I have worked to prepare myself for a political life characterized by both practical political ability and a concern for rapid social progress . . . . It is a life I still feel compelled to try to lead."
Clinton's words recall that era's anguish for many young men torn between patriotic duty and disgust with the war: "I have written and spoken and marched against the war . . . [and have come to believe that] no government really rooted in limited, parliamentary democracy should have the power to makes its citizens fight and kill and die in a war they may oppose . . . [and that] does not involve immediately the peace and freedom of the nation."
Clinton says he hopes the letter will be seen as that of "a conflicted and thoughtful young man" who "loved his country but hated the war," who wanted to stay home and "do what I could to work for progress." For others, it may seem the letter of a draft-evader and political opportunist. It may be both: In few people, then or now, can principled positions and practical considerations be neatly isolated in separate compartments.
Yet, as with the adultery allegations, the ROTC affair raises questions not only about the candidate, but about the ways we choose to scrutinize candidates.
Long before Flowers sold her story to a supermarket tabloid, Clinton had acknowledged that his marriage had undergone shaky years. His refusal to cite chapter and verse was appropriate, and a positive contribution to the level of political discourse in America. At the least, there ought to be a statute of limitations on such matters.
The same could be said of the ROTC letter. In Clinton's defense, recall that the vice president of the United States avoided the draft by working in a National Guard office in Indianapolis at a time when it was assumed guardsmen would not be called up. He hawkishly supported the war; he simply wanted others to fight it. By contrast, Clinton's opposition to the war was never in doubt.
In evaluating prospective presidents, consideration of character must be a part. But such consideration, it seems, is not always equally applied. And the sorting of personal pasts ought to be in some proportion to other issues presumably of concern to voters, such as what the aspirants propose to do in high public office.