Following Rules, Finding Advantage

"It is impossible for me to change the date of my commitment and my presence is mandatory in order to retain my present position and proficiency," Bradley wrote on Mar. 7, 1971, when the Knicks completed a sweep of the Celtics in Boston and clinched the NBA division championship. That request, like some others, was made and approved after the fact.

Evolving Views of War

In the earliest debates around Bradley of the Vietnam war, his friends of the time said he was largely silent or focused on questions of fact. In his memoir, Bradley recalls that "there were powerful psychological forces in me that gave people in authority the benefit of the doubt."

Bradley's silence was put to the severest test in January 1967. Allard Lowenstein, the anti-war activist, came to Oxford and urged the Rhodes scholars to use their prestige to strike a blow at the war, and the group met intensively to draft an open letter to President Lyndon B. Johnson.

According to several participants, Bradley sat in on most of the meetings but did not say much. In the end, 50 of the 68 Rhodes scholars in residence signed. Bradley was not one of them.

Soberly worded, the letter acknowledged that there was nothing to be gained by "sudden, unconsidered abandonment of our responsibilities in Vietnam." But "our feelings of conscience and of national obligation counsel skepticism and concern, not active support, of the Government's Vietnam policy."

Bradley, in an interview, said he did "not really" disagree with the letter. "That was at a time when the issue of celebrity was the issue I was dealing with--whether I should sign the letter given the fact that it wouldn't just be me but it would be me using well-knownness, and I decided not to."

A few months later, on May 15, 1967, Bradley appeared on television on Charles Collingwood's "Town Meeting of the World." The subject was Vietnam, with California Gov. Ronald Reagan voicing support for the war and Sen. Robert F. Kennedy representing cautious criticism.

Everyone else in the broadcast was a student, Bradley the lone American among them and the only one not to declare U.S. policy illegal, immoral or racist. "This discussion is now sounding like many I've had at Oxford, and many I've had in Europe," Bradley said. "The United States is not out to achieve a position of power. . . . I think that there are certain considerations here about stability in Asia that haven't been answered."

Reagan, moments later, endorsed the point "that Bill Bradley said, and it's very significant."

Bradley did not speak again publicly on the war for four years. When he did--at a dinner for scholar-athletes in St. Louis--he came out swinging.

"Eighteen-year-old Americans are sent--unconstitutionally--to die in the civil war of an underdeveloped country on the other side of the world, for the espoused purpose of protecting America; political fugitives compose one-half of the FBI's most wanted list," he told his audience. "We learn our myths early and see the world through them--the myth of America's moral superiority, our manifest destiny, the melting pot, and the deceptive belief in progress."

Bradley's active service with the Air Force Reserve was nearing its end. His benefit of the doubt on Vietnam had disappeared.

Staff writer Dale Russakoff, special correspondent Christine B. Whelan in Oxford, England, and staff researcher Madonna Lebling contributed to this report.

Key Moments in Bradley's Military Career

Aug.21, 1961: Registers for draft with Local Board 54, Crystal City, Jefferson County, Mo.

Feb. 11, 1964: Receives 2-S deferment from conscription as Princeton undergraduate.

June 15, 1965: Graduates from Princeton.

Oct. 22, 1965: 2-S deferment renewed at start of two years as Rhodes Scholar at Oxford University, England.

Aug. 16, 1966: 2-S deferment renewed.

Jan. 12, 1967: Meets the commander of 514th Troop Carrier Wing, McGuire AFB, after introduction from Princeton's Air Force ROTC director; applies for a spot in the Air Force reserve as administrative officer; tests in 95th percentile for potential "officer quality."

April 14, 1967: Enlists in Air Force Reserve; assigned to officer training on first available date; commits to six months active duty and four years active-status reserve, including one weekend a month and two full weeks each year.

April 27, 1967: Signs four-year, $ 500,000 contract with New York Knickerbockers.

May 15, 1967: Reclassified 1-D for the draft, exempt from conscription as a member of Air Force reserve.

July 6, 1967: Enters Officer Training School, Lackland AFB, San Antonio.

Sept. 29, 1967: Commissioned as 2nd lieutenant; assigned administrative training at Amarillo AFB.

Dec. 9, 1967: Joins Knicks in mid-season after being excused one month early from active duty because his administrative skills are not needed immediately.

March 3, 1978: Honorably discharged as 1st lieutenant.

Bill Bradley in his early days in the Air Force Reserve. He attended officer training school in 1967 in San Antonio. Bill Bradley and his second cousin Steven Trautwein, right, after their graduation from Princeton University in 1965. In a letter dated Oct. 18, 1966, during his Rhodes scholarship studies, Bill Bradley queried a professor-mentor about his options. Below, an evaluation of Lt. Bradley and a request to defer a scheduled assignment.