By the Numbers. The Reform of the Selective Service System 1970-1972

摘要

The Armed Forces of the United States reportedly are finding it increasingly difficult to recruit and retain enough qualified men and women to defend the Nation. The available pool of service-eligible males is shrinking and will continue to decrease into the 1990s. This trend has serious implications for either a volunteer or a conscripted force. Since the military cannot affect such demographic phenomena, manpower seems destined to be a crucial defense issue for the remainder of this century. Curtis W. Tarr, the author of this book, presided over the Selective Service System during a period of transition. He arrived in 1970 when conscription was in full swing and under attack, instituted changes, and departed in 1972 as the All-Volunteer Force was emerging. In the Selective Service System change did not come about easily. The story of how it eventually succeeded is doubly instructive; as an important episode of American history narrated by an articulate observer, and as an account by a key participant, who had face in seminal form many of the manpower problems maturing in the 1980s. This book is also a story of organizational reform, a topic of perennial interest to managers in the government and the private sector.