As a short-term fix, on September 20 Nixon had announced that he was reducing draft calls for the coming year by 50,000 men. He also urged Congress to amend the draft law so that in the future he could implement a lottery system that would apply only to 19-year-olds or to those out of college who had not yet participated in a lottery. The great advantage of this system was that it would limit to one year, rather than seven, the time a young man was subject to the draft.
