Cutting Close to Home

By SOPHFRONIA SCOTT GREGORY

Ronald Dellums is not the sort of person the Pentagon would pick to be chairman of the House Armed Services Committee. Known for his radical politics that earned him the nickname "Berkeley Berzerkly," he has maintained a steadfastly critical military posture during his 22 years as Congressman from Oakland, California. It was Dellums who consistently slashed away at Defense expenditures, voted to cut the number of B-2 bombers down to 20 when the Pentagon wanted 130, helped knock back the budget for the Strategic Defense Initiative and voted to trim U.S. military presence in Europe. His mantra: some of the billions spent on defense could be better spent elsewhere -- such as on the poor and the disadvantaged.

Last week the Defense Department struck back. Alameda County, which he ! represents, ranked No. 1 on the list of recommended military closings released by Defense Secretary Les Aspin last week. All five of the naval installations in Dellums' district will close, taking with them about 10,000 jobs and a $400 million payroll. The Alameda Naval Air Station, Alameda Naval Aviation Depot, Oakland Naval Hospital, the Oakland Naval Supply Center and the Naval Public Works Center in San Francisco are critical elements to the area's economy. The dense network of equipment and workers includes three nuclear-carrier berths, repair depots, a naval supply center for parts, a public works facility, motor pools and over 7,000 housing units.

The shutdowns in Alameda are part of what Aspin has called "the mother of all base closings," the most sweeping proposals since World War II, and they show how devastating the job loss can be. Nationwide, the closings include 31 major military installations as well as the curtailment of 134 others -- a plan that is eventually expected to save more than $3 billion a year. Most will occur in California, where three bases in addition to those in Alameda will close. The Pentagon says 16,000 military and 15,000 civilian jobs will be directly cut in the state, but California Governor Pete Wilson says the ripple effect will mean that more than 300,000 jobs will be lost -- a cruel blow to a state already suffering the worst unemployment in the nation.

Across the country, the closings will have both an economic and a psychological impact, especially in the short term as communities struggle to find ways to convert the properties to civilian use. Predictably, politicians from affected areas were quick to squawk. "It could bring economic devastation to the area," said Senator Ernest Hollings of South Carolina, which is scheduled to lose its Charleston Naval Station. But Congress has cleverly set up a system that allows the Pentagon to push through its closures while insulating legislators from much of the responsibility or political fallout. In 1990 it established an eight-member bipartisan commission to review Pentagon proposals. If the President approves the commission's recommendations, Congress must consider the package as a whole and can reject it only by a majority vote in both houses.

Dellums insists that in theory he's in favor of the process. "Twice before, in 1988 and 1991, I voted for closing bases," he says. "I helped draft the base-closure legislation we're working under. I've never approached this issue as a parochial or pork matter." But the Pentagon's new list, Dellums insists, smacks of political retribution rather than prudent pruning. "This is George Bush's base-closing list, and it's George Bush's base-closing commission," says an agitated Dellums, clearly distraught at the loss of jobs on his home turf. "If you think it's normal to include all five bases in my district, you're a hell of a lot more naive than I am."

Like other politicians whose districts are now threatened by Aspin's cuts, Dellums is mounting an effort to save his local bases. His argument: the Alameda installations, especially the nuclear-carrier berths, serve a specific purpose, and it would make no sense to close them if the military had to build new ones somewhere else to do similar work. The Pentagon analysis, Dellums says, "fails to take into consideration the synergism of having those bases clustered together."

Up until now, Dellums' military posture certainly hasn't hurt him in his district, which he last won by 72% of the vote. That is partly because he succeeded Aspin as Armed Services Committee chairman and voters believed he would be in a position to prevent any of the Pentagon's ire from hitting close to home. "He's always been antimilitary, but right now we're looking at him as one of our last hopes to save the installation," says Mark Hutchings, a fire inspector at the Mare Island Naval Complex shipyard in Vallejo.

There's no question Dellums and Alameda will be in for a struggle -- as will many other cities and towns across the country that have vowed to try to fight the base closings in their own backyards. Bases are rarely removed from a closing list. But the combative Dellums is not ready to surrender. Instead he is preparing to take his case to the nonpartisan commission. "My constituents have the right to expect every decision to be made in fairness," he says, "on solid economic grounds and with strategic considerations in mind. It seems to me my constituents are being penalized for my political principles, and that's unfair."

With reporting by David Jackson/Oakland and Bruce van Voorst/Washington