Introduced into Congress two days before the fall of France and
signed into law three months later as Luftwaffe bombs set London
afire, the Selective Training and Service Act began the process by
which fifteen million Americans were inducted into the armed
services during the Second World War. Clifford and Spencer recount
a neglected but vitally important development in the transformation
of American policies prior to Pearl Harbor--the first time in
American history when men were conscripted into military service
during peacetime.
Central to the discussion in The First Peacetime Draft is the
first important American policy response to Hitler's victory in
Europe in the spring of 1940--the Selective Service Act. It marked
the effective end of the isolationist tradition in the United
States because for the first time while the country remained
officially at peace civilians were drafted into the armed forces to
face the possible threat of aggression from abroad. Emerging from
the initiative of civilians, not from the Army or the White House,
the conscription campaign resulted in a colorful three-month public
debate that engaged the entire population.
This volume is based on research in more than ninety manuscript
collection in the United States, Canada, and Britain, as well as
interviews with some two dozen participants. In addition to being a
detailed political history of the debate over conscription, it
places the draft in the context of Roosevelt's zig-zag path to war
and evaluates it in terms of the overall evolution of the American
defense and foreign policies since 1940.
General
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