Overselling the Pentagon

Cost overruns are so familiar by now that they hardly raise eyebrows any more. Indeed, Mark Twain once described a congressional appropriation as nothing more than a nest egg to attract further appropriations. But even the most hardened observers of military-accounting practices could not resist a smile when the General Accounting Of ice revealed last week that the Pentagon, while proudly remaining within its handsome public-relations budget of $28 million a year, has actually been spending millions more on such p.r. projects as formation-flying teams, marching bands, military museums and base tours. It estimated the excess spending at $24.5 million during fiscal 1972, and the outlays have probably not declined since then. Ostensibly aimed at winning the favor of taxpayers and Congress, the public-relations expenditures seem to have had little effect. Two weeks ago the Senate Armed Services Committee slashed $100 million from the Air Force B-1 bomber budget, $29.3 million from a Navy request for new ships, and 156,100 troops from active duty rosters. Moreover, the Army missed its July recruitment goal by 24%. Would the military's public relations be worse if its p.r. spending were kept within its p.r. budget--or, for that matter, reduced to zero? Or would there be no change at all?

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