Judith M. Tanur

Before I knew Steve well, I knew of his interest in government affairs. It was 1971 and I was still a young lecturer teaching introduction to statistics in a sociology department in which many students were exercised about the Vietnam War and many of the young men, at least, were eager to stay in school to avoid the draft. I came across an article Steve wrote in Science on the 1970 draft lottery. (I suspect “I came across” is shorthand for saying Bill Kruskal called it to my attention. Bill often did such things, and it turns out he was part of the inspiration for Steve to write the article and submit it for publication in Science). In any case, Steve discussed historical uses of lotteries by governments and described in detail the procedures used by the Selective Service System to assure a random and fair lottery in 1970.

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