Never Sound Retreat

By Ed Magnuson

Weinberger wages a stubborn defensive struggle

Pentagon's point man found himself isolated, encircled and under siege last week. But Secretary of Defense Caspar Weinberger refused to surrender in his unflinching battle to protect the military budget from facing its share of the cuts made by the rest of the Administration in the drive to reduce the huge federal deficit.

Returning from meetings with other NATO ministers in Western Europe, Weinberger jumped into the budget wars after all other departments and the President had tentatively agreed to slash a painful $34 billion next year from what is now spent on domestic programs. In a series of White House meetings, Weinberger at first argued against any slowdown in the military buildup, then suggested that it was up to others, not him, to find soft spots in the $333.7 billion he wants Congress to authorize for fiscal 1986, which begins next October. Finally, he offered some bookkeeping savings of $6 billion that would leave all weapons development and Pentagon spending plans untouched. Complained a White House aide: "He alienated everybody. He insulted their intelligence."

Weinberger was welcomed back to Washington with a litany of warnings. "I don't believe you can put together a realistic package without including defense," said Senate Budget Committee Chairman Pete Domenici. Insisted the newly elected Senate Majority Leader Robert Dole: "Substantial reductions should be forthcoming from the defense budget." From within the Administration, Treasury Secretary Donald Regan led a rearguard action. "It would be very difficult to pass the budget without having defense as part of the package," he said publicly.

The Pentagon boss was unpersuaded.

Brushing off suggestions from top aides that he should begin by proposing some symbolic cuts, Weinberger went to a White House meeting on Monday and sat quietly through a belt-tightening pitch by the President. He assured Reagan that his department would take another look at its budget figures and "come in with suggested cuts." But once Reagan was out of the room, Weinberger tangled with David Stockman, director of the Office of Management and Budget, in what one participant called a heated exchange.

Stockman wanted to get $8 billion out of defense outlays next year on top of the $34 billion from other agencies. Even so, Stockman's plan would permit the Pentagon to proceed with development of 48 more MX missiles, the B-l bomber and the President's Star Wars defense against a nuclear missile attack.

Weinberger countered that it was dangerous to force the Defense Department to cut its budget out of some sense of fairness to the other agencies making sacrifices. The military is unlike all other departments of the Government, he said, because its budget "has to be determined by the threats outside the United States."

Regan tried to parry Weinberger's counterattack at a breakfast meeting with reporters. The Treasury Secretary noted that by next year there will have been five straight years of sharp military increases, and he contended that "a slowdown in the rate of growth wouldn't do irreparable harm to our ability to defend ourselves." Added Regan pointedly: "The economy of the country is almost as important as our defense against outside enemies, and with these huge deficits we could be in danger of losing our economy."

By Wednesday, Weinberger was ready to play a few specific cards, but he dealt them with a sleight of hand. At a White House lunch, he rattled off some numbers in a near mumble, giving only the President printed notes to follow. The others were "treated like second-class citizens," claimed one observer. When those around the table finally unscrambled Weinberger's offer, they did not think much of it. He had proposed shifting a scheduled 5.6% military pay increase from January 1986 to July 1, 1985, producing a paper saving of $4 billion in the fiscal 1986 budget with no real cut in pay. He counted another $1 billion in Pentagon savings from the 5% pay cut proposed by the President for all civilian workers in Government. But Stockman had included this in the $34 billion of savings already calculated.

Weinberger also claimed savings from a lower inflation rate than Pentagon budgeteers had anticipated and from putting less petroleum into strategic oil reserves than had been planned. In all, Weinberger contended that he was proposing a $6 billion cut. The other $2 billion in savings, Weinberger suggested somewhat disingenuously, could be realized when and if the U.S. and U.S.S.R. agreed next year on some kind of arms-control measures. "Nobody could fight back on that in front of the President," said one White House official. "To do so would be to say that his arms-control proposals wouldn't work."

"The Secretary has put the monkey on the President's back," said a Pentagon source. What worried top Reagan aides was that other Cabinet members might get so frustrated by Weinberger's intransigence that they would ask that their own cuts be reconsidered. Many feel that his use of questionable number juggling to come up with only token "savings" discredits the entire budget process. Their only hope, they say, is to convince the President, who seemed to be leaning toward Weinberger's position, that the Pentagon demands are clearly beyond what is required for the nation's military security. Before the President takes his budget battle to Congress, he must referee the one-sided slugfest between his favorite Cabinet member and the rest of his team. --By EdMagnuson.

Reported by Barrett Seaman and Bruce van Voorst/Washington

With reporting by Barrett Seaman, BRUCE VAN VOORST