$1.5 Billion Asked for 21 MX Missiles : Weapon Needed as Geneva Bargaining Chip, Reagan Says

President Reagan formally asked Congress on Monday for $1.5 billion to build 21 more MX nuclear missiles, arguing that the controversial weapon is needed for national security and as a lever to pressure the Soviet Union into serious bargaining when arms talks resume next Tuesday in Geneva.

Reagan called the 10-warhead, land-based intercontinental missile “an essential element of our arms control strategy.” Without it, he maintained, “our chances of reaching an equitable agreement with the Soviet Union to reduce significantly the size of our nuclear arsenals are substantially lowered.”

The President’s prospects for winning continued congressional approval of his program, in which an arsenal of 100 MX missiles ultimately would be built, clearly are improved by the coincidental timing of the resumption of U.S.-Soviet nuclear arms negotiations.

Slight Edge Reported

Only a few weeks ago, the MX program generally was regarded as dead, but both sides now agree that it has been resurrected by Reagan--and observers say privately that he has a slight edge in both the Senate and the House.

Summarizing his principal argument for building more of the missiles, Reagan declared Monday that if Congress were to reject his request, “it would send an unmistakable signal to the Soviet Union that we do not possess the resolve required, nor the continuity of purpose, to maintain a viable strategic triad (of land-, air- and sea-based nuclear weapons) and the policy of deterrence the triad represents.”

He also asserted that, after a decade of congressional debate over the MX, “the time has come to place this issue behind us.”

Tentative Authorization

Reagan inserted his personal message into a presidential report to Congress mandated by the lawmakers during last year’s bruising fight over the MX. After having approved the first 21 MX missiles two years ago, Congress last year gave only tentative authorization for another 21. And even that hesitant semi-endorsement required a rare tie-breaking vote in the Senate by Vice President George Bush and a full-scale Administration lobbying campaign in the House.

Congress stipulated last year that before money could be released to build the second batch of 21 missiles, Reagan would have to send the lawmakers a report satisfying their doubts about the program, then win two additional floor votes in each house. The report--triggering a relatively quick timetable for the voting--could not be delivered to Congress until at least March 1, a requirement that wound up working heavily in the President’s favor.

The White House estimated Monday that the congressmen will be casting floor votes during the week after U.S.-Soviet bargaining begins in Geneva.

“The fact that we are in negotiations (with the Soviets) might enhance the likelihood” of the President prevailing, House Majority Leader Jim Wright (D-Tex.) theorized Monday.

White House Chief of Staff Donald T. Regan said in an interview that the President would lobby both congressmen and the public and estimated that his prospects of success are “good.”

But White House spokesman Robert Sims was more cautious, saying: “We’re certainly not confident of victory. That’s why the President is getting personally involved.”

Opponents of the MX also launched their lobbying campaigns Monday. A group called the Coalition to Stop the MX called a news conference on Capitol Hill to denounce the missile as too costly, too vulnerable to first-strike attack and too threatening to the Soviets. The group is led by Dorothy Ridings, national president of the League of Women Voters; Fred Wertheimer, president of the lobbying group Common Cause, and several congressmen.

“I think it’s absolutely idiotic to plan for a nuclear war,” said Rep. Charles E. Bennett (D-Fla.), a member of the House Armed Services Committee. Rep. Bill Green (R-N.Y.), a member of the House Appropriations Committee, called the weapon “a military Edsel.”

In ordering the presidential report, Congress asked Reagan to answer questions about whether the MX really is needed for the nation’s security, whether it would be too vulnerable to Soviet attack while based in old unhardened Minutemen silos and whether it might better be scrubbed in favor of a smaller, single-warhead missile that would be called Midgetman.

Blue-Ribbon Report Cited

In replying, the President extensively quoted from a report issued two years ago by his blue-ribbon Commission on Strategic Forces, headed by retired Lt. Gen. Brent Scowcroft. That panel proposed a $20-billion program to deploy 100 of the 100-ton MX missiles in existing Minuteman silos, while simultaneously moving forward with development of a 15-ton Midgetman. Reagan said those recommendations “are still valid.”

The report was dominated by somber language--for example, an academic discussion about “successive waves of attacking (Soviet) missiles” detonating “every 30 to 60 seconds” in a “pin-down attack”--and contained many previously disclosed details of U.S. and Soviet arsenals and nuclear strategy.

It also included repeated references to the MX as “the Peacekeeper,” the name preferred by Reagan.

“While we have debated the merits of the Peacekeeper program,” Reagan said, “the Soviets have deployed over 600 Peacekeeper-type missiles.”

Under the Administration’s timetable, the first MX missiles would be deployed in 1986 and the full 100-weapon arsenal would be operational by the end of 1989.