escalation in Vietnam such men were routinely rejected, but with a war
on, these "new standards" men were suddenly declared fit to fight. Rejec-
tion rates plummeted. Between 1965 and 1966 the overall rejection rate
fell from 50 to 34 percent, and by 1967 mental rejections were cut in half.39
The new-standards men were offered no special training to raise their
intellectual skills. Most were simply trained for war. Yet, in 1966 Moyni-
han was still calling for lower military standards. That year Secretary of
Defense Robert McN amara instituted a program that promised to carry
out many of Moynihan's proposals. Called Project 100,000, McNamara's
program was designed to admit 100,000 men into the military each year
who failed the qualifying exam even at the lower standards of 1965. This
program, McN amara claimed, would offer valuable training and oppor-
tunity to America's "subterranean poor." As McNamara put it, "The poor
of America. ..have not had the opportunity to earn their fair share of this
nation's abundance, but they can be given an opportunity to serve in their
country's defense and they can be given an opportunity to return to
civilian life with skills and aptitudes which for them and their families will
reverse the downward spiral of decay."40 N ever well known, Project
100,000 has virtually disappeared from histories of the Johnson presi-
dency. It was conceived, in fact, as a significant component of the admin-
istration's "war on poverty," part of the Great Society, a liberal effort to
uplift the poor, and it was instituted with high-minded rhetoric about
offering the poor an opportunity to serve. Its result, however, was to send
many poor, terribly confused, and woefully uneducated boys to risk death
in Vietnam. There is an important analogy here to the way American
officials explained the war itself. It was not, they claimed, a unilateral
military intervention to bolster a weak, corrupt, and unpopular govern-
ment in South Vietnam against revolutionary nationalism, but a generous
effort to help the people of South Vietnam determine their own fate. But if
governments were judged by their professed intentions alone, and not by
the consequences of their actions as well, every state would bask in glory.
Graham Greene might have said about Project 100,000 what he said about
the well-intentioned Alden Pyle in his novel Th;e Quiet American: "I never
knew a man who had better motives for all the trouble he caused."41
The effect of Project 100,000 was dire. The promised training was never
carried out. Of the 240,000 men inducted by Project 100,000 from 1966 to
1968, only 6 percent received additional training, and this amounted to
little more than an effort to raise reading skills to a fifth grade level. Forty
WORKING-CLASS WAR
were trained for combat, compared with only 25 percent for all
men. Also, while blacks comprised 10 percent of the entire mili-
.A
half of the almost
who entered the military under Project 100,000 were sent to
Had the prewar
, almost 3 million men would have been ex-
military service on the basis of intelligence. Under the
1.36 million were mentally disqualified.
, were exempted because of
with poorer nutrition and less access to decent health care, to
of these exemptions. In practice, however, most physical
were assigned to men who had the knowledge and resources
Poor and working-class men ordinarily allowed
-,- their physical fitness. Induction centeer ex-
were often perfunctory exercises in which all but the most
According to the best study of the
Strauss's Chance and Circumstance, men who ar-
induction physical with professional documentation of a
.--~
or desire to challenge an
The case of an induction center in Seattle, Washington,
example, but it underlines the significance of this
that center, the registrants were divided into two groups:
and those who did
received an exemption, regardless ofwhat the
minor disabilities were grounds for medical disqualification.
flat feet, asthma, trick knees-such ailments were easily
, by military doctors, but they were legal exemptions
granted when attested to by a family physician.
."In the Los
WORKING-ClASS WAR .
33
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