Curtis Tarr
The man who oversaw the national draft instituted under President Richard Nixon in 1969 and who also brokered a consolidation of Lawrence University in Appleton, Wis., and the Milwaukee-Downer College died last week at the age of 88. Curtis Tarr, president at the private college in Appleton from 1963 to 1969, had the unenviable task until 1972 of running the system by which young men were conscripted into military service in Vietnam. Previously, local draft boards vulnerable to favoritism and corruption had selected who would serve.
Tarr’s system was an attempt at complete randomness (which is more or less impossible given how deterministic the universe tends to be) based on men’s birth dates. Part of the process involved pulling capsules containing orders of assignment for soldiers from a rotating Plexiglas drum. The drawing resembling an actual lottery was a dreaded occasion since the prize was possibly brutal combat in Southeast Asia. Tarr pushed to limit exceptions for college students (unsuccessfully) and narrow the definition of what constituted a conscientious objector (successfully).
Tarr left the Selective Service System in 1972 to serve as undersecretary of state for security assistance and later worked for Deere and Co. and Cornell University. He died of pneumonia in Walnut Creek, Calif., on Friday.
(photo by Selective Service System)
