Retired Army Col. David Hackworth, a Vietnam veteran and critic,
believes Rove is behind the renewed debate about that war nearly 40
years ago. The former war correspondent and online columnist says
Rove's strategy as the president's political adviser is to distract
from the bloodshed in Iraq and Afghanistan by focusing the public's
attention on Vietnam.
"You're dealing with the Machiavelli of modern politics," Hackworth
says. "If you look at his track record, what he is really brilliant at
is keeping the opposition from being locked on the real message. Do we
know that Iraq is a disaster? No. But we know all about the swift
boats."
Did Karl Rove dodge the draft?
By Rebecca Walsh
The Salt Lake Tribune
Except for a lapse of several months, Selective Service records show
presidential adviser Karl Rove escaped the draft for nearly three
years at the height of the Vietnam War using student deferments.
Rove's avoidance of military service during the Vietnam War has become
an issue in an ongoing presidential campaign debate retreading the
military records of President Bush and challenger Sen. John Kerry.
Bush's supporters have attacked Kerry's war decorations and statements
he made opposing the war. And Kerry backers insist Bush was quietly
ushered into the protective ranks of the National Guard to avoid
combat, then failed to fullfil the last months of his service
obligation.
Democrats cast Rove as the mastermind of a hypocritical Bush team that
managed to avoid the draft and now cynically encourages questions
about Kerry's three Purple Hearts. Last April, Kerry even mentioned
Rove by name, along with Vice President Cheney, saying the two men
"went out of their way to avoid their chance to serve."
The Bush camp and a Rove friend counter that casting the man who has
been called "Bush's Brain" in that light is defamation.
"Anyone that says that Karl's tactic was to play the hawk, but avoid
the service" is slandering his name, says Olympus High School
classmate Mark Gustavson, now a Salt Lake City attorney.
Whether or not Rove is behind the attacks on Kerry's Vietnam record,
his own draft record and accounts from friends reveal a young man who
didn't necessarily agree with the war and managed to avoid being
drafted.
Rove's Selective Service records are sparse, but they show a seemingly
typical path for many male Utah high school seniors in 1969.
Like most, he registered with the Selective Service while he was a
senior at Olympus High School, and he was assigned identification
number 42-24-50-1691. Rove was first classified as 1S-H, ineligible to
be drafted because he was a high school student.
Gustavson and Rove became friends over their shared distaste for the
war in Vietnam. Both high school debate team members, they once were
thrown out of a pizza parlor after a heated argument over the war.
Another time, they trekked downtown together to protest Democratic
presidential candidate Hubert Humphrey's speech at the LDS Church
Tabernacle.
Far from being a conscientious objector, Gustavson recalls, Rove's
opposition to the war was political. He considered the conflict a
"political skirmish that was not being properly administered."
"I never heard Karl say, 'I hope I don't get drafted,' " Gustavson
says. "Everyone went and registered. No matter how we felt about the
war, we understood our legal duty. I don't remember Karl saying he
would get married or get a student deferment or do anything that would
have earned one a deferment."
But Rove got one anyway. Rove graduated from high school in the spring
of 1969 and in June was reclassified 1-A, available to be drafted.
Rove enrolled that fall in the University of Utah. In December the
Selective Service System held its first lottery drawing in which
numbers were assigned to potential draftees based on their birth
dates. The lower the number, the more likely it was the young man
would be drafted.
Rove received number 84, or within the top one-fourth of the 365
numbers. It would turn out that the highest lottery number drafted
from this group was 195, according the Selective Service, putting
Rove's number deep within those that could be drafted.
On Jan. 19, 1970, less than two months after the lottery, Rove
underwent a required Armed Forces Physical Examination and was found
to be fit for military service.
About a month later, on Feb. 17, 1970, Rove was again reclassified,
this time as 2-S, a deferment from the draft because of his enrollment
at the University of Utah.
During his two years at the university, Rove studied politics.
Beloved professor emeritus J.D. Williams, a staunch Democrat, was his
mentor. Rove has said he served an internship through the Hinckley
Institute of Politics. And in 1970, he worked on former Republican
Sen. Wallace F. Bennett's successful campaign to defeat incumbent
Democratic U.S. Sen. Frank Moss.
At the time, a full-time student at the university would have had to
take 12 hours a quarter. University records show Rove went to school
full-time for four of those quarters. But in the autumn and spring
quarters of 1971, Rove was a part-time student, registered for between
six and 12 credit hours. In his book, The Draft: 1940- 1973, Texas
Tech University history professor George Flynn writes that Selective
Service regulations required a student with a draft deferment to study
"full-time, pursuing a regular degree, and in senior college. But the
definition of full time varied from school to school."
Despite the apparent lapse in his full-time status, Rove maintained
his deferment.
At the end of the school year in 1971, Rove told Gustavson he was
going to Washington to work for the Republican National Committee as
executive director of the College Republicans - a job Bennett
reportedly helped him secure.
Bush-Cheney campaign spokesman Steve Schmidt says Rove enrolled that
fall at the University of Maryland in College Park. But a letter he
prepared to notify the local draft board in Murray of his transfer
never made it to Utah.
"To this day, it is unclear to Mr. Rove what happened to the letter,"
Schmidt says. "He turned it in to the university. But whether it was
lost in the mail or arrived late, the draft board did not get it in
time and the deferment was not renewed."
University of Maryland registrar's records show Rove withdrew from
classes during the first half of the semester. He continued to work
for the party. And on Dec. 14, 1971, he was reclassified as 1-A,
available - extended priority, Schmidt says, meaning he could be
drafted ahead of everyone else. For four months, Rove was exposed to
the draft, but was not called.
However, his risk of being drafted ended on April 27, 1972, when Rove
was reclassified again as 1-H, or "not currently subject to processing
for induction."
According to Selective Service records, the names of 4.4 million men,
along with Rove, essentially were placed at the bottom of draft lists
between January and August of 1972.
"That classification was granted to a lot of people at the wind-down
of the Vietnam War," says Selective Service spokesman Pat Schuback.
"Large numbers of people were reclassified."
The last man inducted entered the Army on June 30, 1973, according to
the Selective Service.
Kerry's camp continues to make Rove's draft history the subject of
debate.
The Massachusetts senator's medals have been questioned by a group
called Swift Boat Veterans for Truth. Bush lawyer Benjamin Ginsberg
resigned after acknowledging he advised both the Swift Boat Veterans
and the president's campaign. And former Georgia Sen. Max Cleland, a
Kerry supporter and Vietnam veteran, earlier this month said, "Karl
Rove was behind it all."
Retired Army Col. David Hackworth, a Vietnam veteran and critic,
believes Rove is behind the renewed debate about that war nearly 40
years ago. The former war correspondent and online columnist says
Rove's strategy as the president's political adviser is to distract
from the bloodshed in Iraq and Afghanistan by focusing the public's
attention on Vietnam.
"You're dealing with the Machiavelli of modern politics," Hackworth
says. "If you look at his track record, what he is really brilliant at
is keeping the opposition from being locked on the real message. Do we
know that Iraq is a disaster? No. But we know all about the swift
boats."
Schmidt rejects the suggestion that Rove had anything to do with the
ads or a larger strategy to question Kerry's Vietnam record. The
campaign did not respond to a request for an interview with Rove.
"There is no connection," he says. "That charge is baseless." Schmidt
notes that Bush lauded Kerry's service during the Republican National
Convention - and delegates applauded him.
And Gustavson says criticism by Democrats - "Clintonistas," he calls
them - of Rove's apparent luck is unfair.
"It paints a time in American history with too broad and dramatic a
stroke. It wasn't that black and white," Gustavson says.
"There were a lot of legitimate reasons for not going. There were a
lot of legitimate reasons for going," he adds. "Some of my friends
were just cowards. But I never heard Karl advocate violating that law.
That he didn't go makes him like hundreds of thousands of other guys
my age who didn't go."
http://www.sltrib.com/ci_2416757
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