Carter Pardons Draft Dodgers (1977)
This Day in Esoteric Political History
Jody Avirgan & Radiotopia
4.6 • 982 Ratings
🗓️ 23 January 2022
⏱️ 19 minutes
🧾️ Download transcript
Summary
It’s January 23rd. This day in 1977, on his first day in office, President Jimmy Carter pardoned Americans who had evaded service in the Vietnam War.
Jody, Nicole, and Kellie discuss how Carter saw a difference between “pardon” and “amnesty” for draft dodgers, the various ways in which people got out of military service, and how much this decision set the tone for the entire Carter presidency.
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Transcript
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| 0:00.0 | Hello and welcome to this day in esoteric political history from radiotopia. |
| 0:07.0 | My name is Jody Avergan. This day January 22nd, 1977, President Jimmy Carter in his first full day in office, |
| 0:17.0 | actually on the 21st, on his first full day in office, he fulfilled one of his most notable |
| 0:21.6 | and most controversial campaign promises, granting |
| 0:24.6 | unconditional pardon to hundreds of thousands of men who had evaded the draft during the Vietnam |
| 0:29.9 | War. |
| 0:30.9 | This was of course less than two years after the US finally pulled out of Vietnam. |
| 0:34.8 | Still a very raw moment for this country and no surprise this particular issue. |
| 0:40.1 | Very contentious, very heated and Carter takes it on on day one so here to discuss the |
| 0:45.8 | draft Dodger pardon all the sort of politics and emotion and all the other things |
| 0:50.1 | swirling around this really fascinating moment are as always |
| 0:53.1 | Nicole Hammer of Columbia and Kelly Carter Jackson of Wellesley. Hello there |
| 0:56.9 | Jody. Hey there. I should also add for me we'll get to this later but you know |
| 1:01.8 | part of the framing for me is just |
| 1:03.7 | what it means for a president to come in and have to clean up a previous president's mess which is something |
| 1:08.0 | I've been thinking about a little bit but uh... Can't imagine why it's on your mind |
| 1:13.0 | yeah every president has to do it. |
| 1:14.0 | And I think, you know, Carter, I think, knew what he was getting himself into, which I think is a big part of this story as well, |
| 1:18.8 | and a really fascinating part of this story. |
| 1:20.5 | But there's one interesting Winkle here, |
| 1:23.0 | Nicky, that maybe we can start with, |
| 1:24.2 | which is I'm using the word pardon, |
... |
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