Yale Gets Ready In Case 'Conflict' Turns Into War

If war comes, Yale will answer the challenge with CODAM. These initials stand for Committee on Defense and Mobilization, a commission Yale formed to make plans for the university in the event of total mobilization.

Under the supervision of Yale's Provost, Edgar S. Fruniss, CODAM is working to prepare Yale to meet the draft, and ready its research facilities for government use.

The first thing CODAM did want to pump all its connections in Washington for information about what form a national draft program might take. The chief link in the passing of data was John S. Nicholas, master of Trumbull College, and a member of Major General Lewis B. Hershey's Selective Service Board.

Opinion on Draft

From what it learned from its contacts, Yale's officials concluded that the present system of selection by grades will stay in force until March when a coalition of Southerners and Midwesterners will push a Universal Military Training program through Congress. The probable term of service, the Yale experts think will be 18 months since that is the maximum period that the legislators are likely to vote.

Military men have been requesting 24 to 36 months' service for every inductee. At least that much time is necessary, they claim, in order to keep a reserve of well trained fighting men in uniform and ready for immediate service at all times. Congress, however, will probably balk at the expense and political unpopularity of such a plan unless the military situation in Korea deteriorates badly.

Went Into Red

Like any other college, Yale, which already last year suffered a deficit, would encounter a temporary drop in enrollment if a full scale draft program went into effect. It has been CODAM's assignment to devise plans which would blunt the ill effects of a draft.

CODAM also reactivated several Yale wartime projects which include: regional intelligence research, war weapons development, and medical research related to diseases.

It has also locked the door of a room in Sloane Laboratory, a chief physic research center, and tagged a "confidential" label on it. Around Yale, the rumor is that Sloane has become the scene for theoretical atomic physics research.