Evening star., 1943-11-09
u. 5. Overseas Draft
Raises Question Of
Dual Nationality
BY MIRIAM GUTENBERG.


When the long arm of selective
service stretches overseas this
month 1t will reach thousands of
men who have never seen the United
Satisfactorily raising an interest
Ing question of international rela-
tions.
Under the Presidents proclama-
ton, United States citizens between
the ages of l8 and As years who are
living abroad and have not pre-
viously registered for selective serv-
ice must do so between November
16 and December 81
The State Department Division
Of Foreign Service Administration
has been assigned the Job of getting
the men registered. Registering,
classifying and inducing the men
would be simple enough matter,
department officials say, if the oues-
ton of dual nationality didn't come
up.
Lived Lives in Other Lands.
1t was explained that the men
who will be called on to register
are not for the most part Govern
ment offlcials assigned to overseas
duty They are fishermen, farmers
and factory workers who have lived
their lives in other lands.
These are typical cases:
&c
States to live. Their children are
born here. Then the family decides
to return to the homeland The
children are American citizens. but
they can't even remember the United
States.
On the other hand. an American
missionary rears his family abroad
The missionary's son is an Ameri-
can citizen, born of American par
ents, but he has never seen the
country of his paternity.
The predominant number of
Americans abroad fall into one or
the other of these two types of
cases.
Men in Foreign Service.
Then there are the men working
for Government agencies abroad.
American men of all ages in the
departments foreign service, accord
Ing to It's figures, total approximately
1000, of whom only half are of
draft age. About 300 State Depart
ment men have not previously reg
istered for the draft.
Among the unregistered ones are
members of the consular service who
were exchanged by Japan for Jap
anese diplomats here. From the ex-
change point they were assigned di-
rectly to posts in Asia, Africa and
the Middle East because of the
shortage of foreign service personnel
In addition, there are the repre-
sentatives Of private firms working
on war contracts abroad-drilling
for oil, mining, searching for strate-
gic metals, tapping for rubber.
No Haul" Expected.
Out of the estimated 100000 Amer
leans now residing outside of the
United States. there are no great
expectations of getting haul"
for the armed forces.
That's not only because of the
dual nationality that ties many of
the men % other countries-some
neutral and some co-belligerent. In
addition, many of the men will be
entitled to occupational deferments
for the work they're doing and
thousands of others are cases where
another country saw them first
State Department officials have
been designated chief registrars in
the foreign settlements and they,
In turn, can designate responsible
American citizens to handle the
job. Where there are only two
Americans in some remote settle
n1ent, both may have to be desig-
mated registrars so they can regis
ter each other, if both are of mill
tary age.
Once the men are registered their
cards 80 to the draft board in their
American home town, if they have
one. Otherwise, members of the
Districts draft board No. I will be
the 'neighbors" who will decide the
fate Of the men they have never
seen.