“We’d like to take them all, but it would be impossible,” he said. “We got orders from the Defense Department to pare the Corps down to 235 and we did it.”

At the same time that the national ROTC program ballooned, the armed forces increased the duration of required service in the reserves. Students who received scholarships from the armed services had signed up with ROTC expecting to serve two years, but the new requirements added between four months and a year to this.

And the situation was graver for those who did not receive tuition from the army. Previously they had also served two years in the reserve, but under the new rules they were made to spend eight years in either an active or reserve unit after graduation.

The heightened burden of military service angered students, because the change in the governmental policy put them in a tough position.

Students who were not part of an ROTC program faced the specter of the draft. But while students who joined the reserves received draft exemptions until they earned their degrees, that option now meant a prolonged term of service after graduation.

Angry naval cadets told The Crimson the new policy was “an obvious breach of contract.” Many withdrew from the program, giving up their draft immunity to face the prospect of leaving the College and entering the war.

Early Rumblings

Members of ROTC were not the only students frustrated with the war in Korea. During the 1951-52 school year the first pacifist organizations since the outbreak of World War II appeared on campus.

The Pacifist Council—co-chaired by two members of the Class, David Drake ’52 and William T. Vasquez ’52—was the first unofficial group.

Originally consisting of 18 members, the group struggled to find a faculty advisor, which was required for it to become an official club recognized by the College.

It was a “group consist[ing] mainly of pacifists,” Drake told The Crimson at the time, “but as a group it hasn’t decided whether to commit itself to pacifism, or just support other projects conducive to peace.”

The only prerequisite to join the group, Drake explained, was to be a conscientious objection.

And during a time when Communist hunts haunted campuses across the country, he also stressed that the club was not just a group of socialists.

Soon after the development of the Pacifist Council, another group sprouted. Calling itself the Peace Club, it began with eight members—two short of the ten necessary to become an official campus organization—but they did have one advantage: a faculty advisor.

The new club’s constitution—more specific and pointed than the first pacifist group—called for the U.S. to downplay its military policies and use negotiation to settle world conflicts. They demanded “social and economic aid to all countries by the United Nations,” as well as “free international exchange of people and information.”