The Project on Amnesty operated from 1972-1975, and these files (10.50 linear feet) document amnesty and clemency issues for draft evaders, military deserters, and veterans holding other-than- honorable discharges. The Project on Amnesty was headed by Henry Schwarzschild. In the fall of 1974, the American Civil Liberties Union merged the Military Rights Project headed by David F. Addlestone into the Amnesty Project. The Clemency Litigation Project under litigation director Edwin J. Oppenheimer, also came under the umbrella of the Amnesty Project; it focused on litigation for war resisters. The staff of the Project on Amnesty and the Military Rights Project (MRP) both worked for the Clemency program on the "exclusion" of individuals who had relinquished their American citizenship.

When it became clear that the Project on Amnesty would not continue beyond the end of 1975, David Addlestone and Susan Newman, a staff attorney, sought new funding for the MRP. They were awarded a grant from The Carnegie Corporation of New York, to establish the National Military Discharge Upgrading Project in affiliation with Georgetown University Law School. The new project began operating on July 1, 1975.

The files are grouped under four headings: administrative, subject files, clemency litigation division, and project director's records, each arranged alphabetically within each heading. The materials grouped under the administrative files heading record the history of the Project itself and the ACLU's policy on amnesty. The records contain correspondence, background material, statistics on the draft and the Vietnam War, and documents on President Ford's establishment of a Presidential Clemency Board. There is substantive material covering "Separation Program Numbers (SPNs)," a code the Army used to denote reasons why an individual was discharged. The ACLU ran a series of advertisements offering to inform veterans what the SPNs on their discharge papers meant.

The project subject files which contain the bulk of the material, include Henry Schwarzschild's correspondence with the staff of other amnesty organizations and the Selective Service System, attorneys in the Departments of Defense and Justice, and members of United States Congress. There are a few historical papers which cover amnesty in American history prior to the Vietnam War era, public statements on amnesty, and congressional testimony. The files on other amnesty organizations cover many groups.

The files of the Clemency Litigation Division include correspondence, project reports, and legal dockets. The Division handled a variety of military, draft, immigration, and Reconciliation Service cases.

The Project Director's files are subdivided into two sections: project files and project subject files. The materials span from 1964 to 1979 and includes material which pre-dates and post- dates the existence of the project. The project files contain correspondence with officials of other amnesty organizations such as the Center for Social Action, National Council of Churches, and the Vietnam Veterans Against the War. Included is correspondence with the Selective Service System regarding statistical summaries of the draft population. Correspondence with the Presidential Clemency Board and its chairman Charles E. Goodell and General Counsel Lawrence Baskir includes summaries of pending clemency cases; also found are numerous internal memoranda critical of the Presidential Clemency Program.

Also included is material pertaining to a minority report issued by a few members of the Clemency Board, led by Gen. Lewis Walt. There are also letters to and from Congressmen, including information pertaining to a list compiled by Senator Edward Kennedy of men under indictment for draft evasion.

There are several restricted files which contain correspondence with and information about clemency program applicants and discharge upgrading applicants seeking the assistance of the ACLU. Also restricted are a "contributions" file which contains membership and donor information and a file containing billing information.

The project subject files contain broad files on "conscientious objection" and "conscription" filled with press releases, minutes, memoranda, miscellaneous legal documents, newsletters, and clippings consisting chiefly of background information from the late 1960s. Other major subject files include a file on Amnesty legislation containing draft and final bills from the U.S. Senate and House of Representatives, along with correspondence regarding those bills; a file on the implementation of President Ford's Clemency Program consisting of rules and regulations and presidential statements and proclamations; and a file of general background information consisting of various drafts of policies, reports, articles, and statements.

There are also additional materials in Series 5, Printed Materials, which contains both ACLU and non-ACLU press releases, manuals, reports, pamphlets, and statements, as well as Congressional hearing transcripts and reports, newsletters and pamphlets of other Amnesty organizations, law journal articles, and the Presidential Clemency Board Report to the President (1975). They can be located under "Military Rights."