A Little Protective Reaction

How much the U.S. should spend for defense and nuclear arms seems certain to be one of the most emotional and hard-fought issues of the presidential campaign. A big slash in the defense budget is a keynote of George McGovern's campaign. A lesser cut is advocated by Hubert Humphrey. With his SALT agreements signed in Moscow, President Nixon has thrust nuclear arms into the harsh glare of national attention. Some of the first arguments over the size of next year's defense budget began in Congress last week.

Despite grumbling by hawks, some conservatives and some Pentagon officials, there is little doubt that Congress will overwhelmingly approve the preliminary, five-year freeze on most offensive strategic weapons, which will require only majority approval in both chambers, and that the Senate will muster the two-thirds vote necessary to ratify the treaty limiting anti-ballistic-missile defenses to just two sites each in the U.S. and Russia. But Defense Secretary Melvin Laird flew some verbal protective-reaction strikes over Capitol Hill, trying to convince congressional committees that despite the agreements designed to slow the arms race, the Defense Department needs even more money in the next fiscal year.

Laird argued first that U.S. efforts to stem the recent Communist offensive in Viet Nam will add between $3 billion and $5 billion to the annual cost of the war--almost doubling earlier projections. Most of the funds would be used for munitions and the costs of the massive U.S. bombing.

A bigger budgetary consideration was Laird's insistence that support of the SALT agreements must be coupled with approval of costly improvements in the quality of offensive weapons. Unless existing weapons are modernized and new systems developed, Laird said, "we would place the security of the United States and the safety of our people in jeopardy." Moreover, he contended, projected new weapons are needed as a hedge in the next phase of the SALT talks; they can be used either to wring concessions out of the Soviet negotiators or to be completed and deployed if the talks break down.

Laird thus insisted that preliminary work proceed on the Trident submarine system, which would include up to ten new nuclear subs carrying missiles with nearly twice the range of the present Polaris and Poseidon. Each vessel would cost about $ 1 billion. He seeks $942 million for this next year. He wants another $445 million to push research and engineering on the B-1 supersonic bomber, which would replace the B-52.

The Pentagon is also asking for $20 million to get started on another submarine-based missile, the SLCM (Submarine-Launched Cruise Missile). A low-flying weapon originally designed for attacking other vessels, the SLCM has been upgraded in terminology to a "strategic" weapon--apparently as another future SALT bargaining chip. Its relatively short range makes it more of a tactical missile than a continent-spanning weapon. The cost of such new weapons development would more than offset the $711 million that the Pentagon estimates can be saved this year and next, as a result of the arms pact, mainly in abandoning work on one Safeguard ABM site in Montana, as the ABM agreement requires. All this would bring next year's defense budget up to $88.6 billion --an increase of $14 billion despite the heralded winding down of the war and the summit pacts.

Heated debate is expected in Congress and in the election campaign over the logic of developing new weapons in part so they can give the U.S. a stronger bargaining position in seeking new arms agreements with the Russians. Critics will assail as a waste of funds the idea that weapons systems must be started so they can be bargained away; defenders will see the projects both as necessary pawns in landing broader agreements and as vital to security if no further agreements are reached.

The rough nature of the impending political battle was indicated by Laird, who assailed McGovern's plan to cut the annual budget by $32 billion by 1975 as "running up the white flag of surrender." McGovern called this "a lot of nonsense," noting that his reduction would be made gradually and claiming that it would not endanger the nation's security. As the partisan stakes mount, no one is sure how Congress will resolve such disputes in the heat of an unpredictable election year.

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