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“He spoke very highly of the Trumps, and they were very open to negotiating with him and letting him stay in the space at a rent he was comfortable with,” Dr. Hochstein said.
Dr. Nicholas Campion, who bought Dr. Braunstein’s practice around the time that the Trumps sold the building, which was less than a mile from the Trump family home in Jamaica Estates, said Donald Trump had had a large presence in the community.
“Everybody recalls the Trump family around Jamaica Estates,” Dr. Campion said.
In recent years, the diagnosis of bone spurs has subjected Mr. Trump to ridicule from critics,
who have found it implausible that a healthy and athletic 22-year-old, on the cusp of being declared fit for service, could suddenly be felled by growths in his heels. Mr. Trump’s own shifting narrative over the years about his Vietnam-era experience has added to the suspicions.
Donald Trump’s Registration Card
After his 18th birthday in June 1964, Donald J. Trump registered with the Selective Service, as did all men his age. It was the summer after his graduation from New York Military Academy and Mr. Trump recalled filling out his papers with his father, Fred C. Trump, at the local draft office on Jamaica Avenue in Queens.
Dec. 26, 2018
At the time of the diagnosis, Mr. Trump was navigating a tumultuous period for the country after he graduated from the University of Pennsylvania. The United States inducted about 300,000 men into the military in 1968. At that time, a year before the draft lottery was instituted, local boards had to meet quotas and called men for service, leaving those without deferments or exemptions vulnerable.
Mr. Trump had been declared available for service two years earlier and undergone a physical exam, Selective Service records show. That exam did not result in a medical exemption, but he did receive an education deferment. When officials again declared him available for service in July 1968, he had exhausted four education deferments and finished school, so it was the medical exemption that kept him from being eligible.
He has often said it was “ultimately” a high draft lottery number that spared him, but Mr. Trump had been medically exempted for more than a year before the lottery began in December 1969.
Beginning in October 1968, records show, Mr. Trump had a 1-Y classification, a temporary medical exemption, meaning that he could be considered for service only in the event of a national emergency or an official declaration of war, neither of which occurred during the conflict in Vietnam. In 1972, after the 1-Y classification was abolished, his status changed to 4-F, a permanent disqualification.
Dr. Braunstein’s office was below Edgerton Apartments, one of dozens of buildings owned by the Trumps in the 1960s. The family sold the building in 2004, records show.Dave Sanders for The New York Times
The Times began looking into Mr. Trump’s draft record anew when an anonymous tipster suggested that a podiatrist who was a commercial tenant of Fred Trump’s had provided the medical documentation.
The tipster offered no names, but The Times used old city directories, held by the New York Public Library, and interviews with Queens podiatrists to identify Dr. Braunstein.
The doctor’s daughters said his role in Mr. Trump’s military exemption had long been the subject of discussions among relatives and friends.
“It was family lore,” said Elysa Braunstein. “It was something we would always discuss.”
She said her father was initially proud that he had helped a “famous guy” in New York real estate. But later, her father, a lifelong Democrat who had served in the Navy during World War II, grew tired of Donald Trump as he became a fixture in the tabloid gossip pages and a reality television star, she said. The daughters, both Democrats, say they are not fans of Mr. Trump.
Dr. Braunstein’s daughters said his role in Mr. Trump’s military exemption had long been the subject of discussions among relatives and friends.Sharon Kessel
Mr. Trump has had a complicated relationship with the military, having quarreled with the likes of Senator John McCain, a prisoner of war during Vietnam; the parents of a slain soldier; and the architect of the Osama bin Laden raid, even while speaking during campaign rallies about his enthusiastic support for veterans and the armed forces. He has also been critical of people who have been less than forthright about their Vietnam records. Earlier this month, he chided Senator Richard Blumenthal, Democrat of Connecticut, over misleading statements he made years ago about his own Vietnam record,
calling him “Da Nang dikk” on Twitter.
Dr. Braunstein’s daughters said that when he discussed Mr. Trump’s medical exemption, he often mentioned Dr. Weinstein, though it was unclear to them what role Dr. Weinstein may have played. He was close to the family, they said, and known as Uncle Manny.
The two men forged a close friendship after meeting in podiatry school in New York, from which they graduated in 1953. Dr. Weinstein was among the oldest students in the class, classmates said, and Dr. Braunstein was remembered for being among the smartest.
One possible explanation that has been raised over the years, the Braunstein sisters said, is that Dr. Weinstein had a connection to the draft, as some private practitioners did. In fact, multiple doctors would have been involved in the final determination.
Dr. Weinstein rented an apartment from Fred Trump in Brooklyn, moving in the same year that Donald Trump received the exemption.Dave Sanders for The New York Times
Before people were inducted into the service, they underwent a physical exam overseen by military doctors, court records from that era show. Men could bring along documentation of medical concerns from private physicians. That information was presented at their exams and considered by a medical officer. Often, a civilian specialist working with the exam station would be asked to review the case and make a recommendation. A local draft board would finalize the man’s classification.
Dr. Weinstein practiced podiatry in Brooklyn’s Bath Beach neighborhood, maintaining an office near another Trump building, Shore Haven Apartments. In 1968, phone books show,
Dr. Weinstein moved into an apartment in Westminster Hall, a Trump-owned building. He lived in that building for many years, and later lived in another owned by the Trumps.
Dr. Weinstein had no children and never married, but some people who knew him were surprised by a possible Trump connection.
When Dr. Weinstein closed his practice in the late 1980s, he referred patients to a nearby podiatrist, Dr. Mark L. Schwartz. When contacted by The Times, Dr. Schwartz said he had never heard about a possible connection between Dr. Weinstein and the Trumps.
Kitty Bennett and Doris Burke contributed research.