This first scholarly biography of Hershey (1893 - 1977) and the first historical study of the draft from 1940 to 1970 presents valuable insights into the operation of the political system and the national defense policy. Serving as draft director under six different presidents, he played an important role in home-front mobilization, the evolution of Cold War politics, the treatment of conscientious objectors, blacks, women, and in the Vietnam protest. Flynn reveals the interaction between the private man and the public person.
Originally published in 1985.
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Individual liberty is ingrained in American culture. Yet, in contrast to this cherished ideal, American men were inducted into military service under a system that flourished for more than twenty years before its rationalization was seriously questioned by more than a small minority of citizens.

Analyzing this paradox, George Flynn provides the first comprehensive look at an institution that managed to sustain political and public favor through two wars before dying out under a barrage of protests during a third. Placing the American draft within a historical context, he shows how social and political considerations determined the character of conscription in the United States.

The draft developed as it did, he argues, not mainly because of military needs or strategy, but because of political decisions initiated by civilians with nonmilitary agendas. Explaining why the draft remained relatively immune to political criticism prior to the Vietnam conflict, Flynn chronicles the draft's military and strategic successes and failures in America's mid-century wars. He shows how major institutions and lobbies representing science, education, and various professions and religions influenced it and how, ultimately and ironically, the selective character of the draft eventually made the system inequitable and helped cause its downfall.

Challenging the assertion that centralization of state power has been a constant characteristic of twentieth-century America, Flynn reveals how local interests were frequently at odds with national interests and that often the local powers prevailed. Thus, he argues, the operation of Selective Service helped curb centralization and assured the continued power and influence of localism.

A complex and volatile issue in America, the draft has been a perennial concern for our presidents and military leaders in their quest for military preparedness and mobilization. Tying military issues to the broader history of state and society, this book examines a continuing problem of the modern state-how to find enough of the right individuals to shoulder defense responsibilities.

"Written by a scholar who is eminently qualified to reconstruct and interpret this history because of his great familiarity with the material and the issues involved, this is a full and rich political history of conscription in America from 1940 through 1973 (and a bit beyond). A fine book based on great research and filled with new details."--John Chambers, author of "To Raise an Army: The Draft Comes to Modern America."

"One theme Flynn pursues imaginatively throughout is the contrast between the mythic purpose of efficient, centralized selection of manpower and the myth of equality of sacrifice in a democratic society. The research is truly staggering-presidential libraries, various military responsibilities from Carlisle to the Hoover Institute, various record groups in the national archives (including very good use of Nixon's presidential records), numerous hearings, pamphlet literature, interviews, oral histories, and correspondence with principal actors."--J. Garry Clifford, author of "The First Peacetime Draft."

Jerry Malone finds himself flying to London for a new case involving a sordid divorce of a local beauty from a British Lord. When the Lord is murdered Jerry is dragooned into an international intrigue involving Arab terrorists, MI5, British diplomats and the Queen. Before the case is over he has to confront thugs in London and Paris and dodge knockout needles on London Bridge.

Jerry Malone can't go home again. After he escapes Hurricane Katrina, he lives in Manhattan wearing mismatched suits and making mismatched relationships, longing for a redux. When a rich New Orleans heiress hires wisecracking and world-weary Jerry for a case, he returns to his Crescent City. Jerry and the heiress need to find out what happened to a mutual friend who is missing and perhaps dead in the city. Searching the city, he watches it rise from mud, oil, and ashes, and possibilities of his personal redemption reveal themselves. Working in scandal-ridden New Orleans, a city notable for continually rebuilding from The Big Blow and other disasters both social and material, Malone begins to rebuild a failed career and relationship. A tarnished attorney turned detective, he battles the destructive forces of New Orleans' corruption and post-Katrina disintegration. He uncovers and derails a plot by a Saudi native to kill candidates for president by using the New Orleans Museum of Art and an unsuspecting kinetic artist as his tools. Malone's challenge is to save the artist, the city, and himself in a novel framed by post-Katrina confusion, international espionage, murder and violence shrouded in an atmosphere of jaded jazz joints and a city filled with half-failed resurrections and funky characters. The character-driven plot involves crime, terrorism, sex and the quirks and struggles of the post-Katrina social milieu.

Finding the manpower to defend democracy has been a recurring problem. Russell Weigley writes: The historic preoccupation of the Army's thought in peacetime has been the manpower question: how, in an unmilitary nation, to muster adequate numbers of capable soldiers quickly should war occur. When the nature of modern warfare made an all-volunteer army inadequate, the major Western democracies confronted the dilemma of involuntary military service in a free society. The core of this manuscript concerns methods by which France, Great Britain, and the United States solved the problem and why some solutions were more lasting and effective than others. Flynn challenges conventional wisdom that suggests that conscription was inefficient and that it promoted inequality of sacrifice.

Sharing similar but not identical diplomatic outlooks, the three countries discussed here were allies in world wars and in the Cold War, and they also confronted the problem of using conscripts to defend colonial interests in an age of decolonization. These societies rest upon democratic principles, and operating a draft in a democracy raises several unique problems. A particular tension develops as a result of adopting forced military service in a polity based on concepts of individual rights and freedoms. Despite the protest and inconsistencies, the criticism and waste, Flynn reveals that conscription served the three Western democracies well in an historical context, proving effective in gathering fighting men and allowing a flexibility to cope and change as problems arose.