From NeilRogers.com
Did Karl Rove dodge the draft?
by Rebecca Walsh
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Rove's Selective Service records are sparse, but they show a seemingly typical path for many male Utah high school seniors in 1969.
Like most, he registered with the Selective Service while he was a senior at Olympus High School, and he was assigned identification number 42-24-50-1691. Rove was first classified as 1S-H, ineligible to be drafted because he was a high school student.
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Rove graduated from high school in the spring of 1969 and in June was reclassified 1-A, available to be drafted.
Rove enrolled that fall in the University of Utah. In December the Selective Service System held its first lottery drawing in which numbers were assigned to potential draftees based on their birth dates. The lower the number, the more likely it was the young man would be drafted.
Rove received number 84, or within the top one-fourth of the 365 numbers. It would turn out that the highest lottery number drafted from this group was 195, according the Selective Service, putting Rove's number deep within those that could be drafted.
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On Jan. 19, 1970, less than two months after the lottery, Rove underwent a required Armed Forces Physical Examination and was found to be fit for military service.
About a month later, on Feb. 17, 1970, Rove was again reclassified, this time as 2-S, a deferment from the draft because of his enrollment at the University of Utah.
During his two years at the university, Rove studied politics. Beloved professor emeritus J.D. Williams, a staunch Democrat, was his mentor. Rove has said he served an internship through the Hinckley Institute of Politics. And in 1970, he worked on former Republican Sen. Wallace F. Bennett's successful campaign to defeat incumbent Democratic U.S. Sen. Frank Moss.
At the time, a full-time student at the university would have had to take 12 hours a quarter. University records show Rove went to school full-time for four of those quarters. But in the autumn and spring quarters of 1971, Rove was a part-time student, registered for between six and 12 credit hours. In his book, The Draft: 1940- 1973, Texas Tech University history professor George Flynn writes that Selective Service regulations required a student with a draft deferment to study "full-time, pursuing a regular degree, and in senior college. But the definition of full time varied from
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Despite the apparent lapse in his full-time status, Rove maintained his deferment.
At the end of the school year in 1971, Rove told Gustavson he was going to Washington to work for the Republican National Committee as executive director of the College Republicans - a job Bennett reportedly helped him secure.
Bush-Cheney campaign spokesman Steve Schmidt says Rove enrolled that fall at the University of Maryland in College Park. But a letter he prepared to notify the local draft board in Murray of his transfer never made it to Utah.
"To this day, it is unclear to Mr. Rove what happened to the letter," Schmidt says. "He turned it in to the university. But whether it was lost in the mail or arrived late, the draft board did not get it in time and the deferment was not renewed."
University of Maryland registrar's records show Rove withdrew from classes during the first half of the semester. He continued to work for the party. And on Dec. 14, 1971, he was reclassified as 1-A, available - extended priority, Schmidt says, meaning he could be drafted ahead of everyone else. For four months, Rove was exposed to the draft, but was not called.
However, his risk of being drafted ended on April 27, 1972, when Rove was reclassified again as 1-H, or "not currently subject to processing for induction."
According to Selective Service records, the names of 4.4 million men, along with Rove, essentially were placed at the bottom of draft lists between January and August of 1972.
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http://news.neilrogers.com/news/articles/2004092003.html
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