American Notes Deffense

Champagne corks popped along the Gulf Coast last week as Defense Secretary Caspar Weinberger announced the selection of nine cities as home ports for 29 warships. In what Senator Lloyd Bentsen called "great news for Texas," his state won some $109 million of the $264 million in annual Pentagon payroll spending. Principal beneficiary was Corpus Christi, which will get the newly refurbished World War II battleship Wisconsin, as well as a cruiser, a destroyer, a minesweeper and the Lexington, an aircraft carrier used for training purposes. Together, the ships will mean an estimated 6,500 new military and civilian jobs in the city.

Other cities celebrating the latest steps in the Reagan Administration's drive to deploy a 600-ship Navy by 1990 included Pensacola, Fla., where the Navy will berth an operational carrier, and Mobile, where two destroyers, two frigates and a minesweeper will be based. In an earlier decision, the Navy said that eight vessels, including the battleship Missouri, will soon call the San Francisco Bay Area home. Said an elated San Francisco Mayor Dianne Feinstein: "We have always been a Navy town, and now we will be a Navy town all over again."