House Votes MX Funding, 219-213 : Reagan Lobbying Credited for Thin Victory; Political Promises Alleged

The House of Representatives, bowing to President Reagan’s relentless lobbying campaign, voted Tuesday to release $1.5 billion for production of the controversial MX missile.

By a vote of 219 to 213, the House approved the funding for 21 missiles, taking the third of four steps needed to continue production of the intercontinental weapon. The final vote, also in the House, will take place either today or Thursday.

In the two days of debate, the supporters of the 195,000-pound weapon, designed to carry 10 nuclear warheads, argued that failure to authorize the funding would weaken the hand of U.S. negotiators at the 2-week-old arms control talks, which have brought the United States and the Soviet Union together in Geneva.

“It would be crazy for the Congress at this point to come and take something off the table, to take something from our negotiators,” said Rep. Les Aspin (D-Wis.), chairman of the House Armed Services Committee.

‘A Vote for Peace’

But Rep. Jim Wright (D-Tex.), the House majority leader, said that if he were convinced that the 21 missiles “would make the difference between success or failure in our efforts to negotiate a sound and successful peace treaty, I would vote with alacrity to spend 10 times this much.”

In a statement issued by the White House, Reagan called the House action “a vote for peace, for a safer future and for success in Geneva.”

The President won the support of 61 Democrats, while 189 opposed missile production. Among the Republicans, 24 voted against the MX and 158 voted for it.

Rep. Charles E. Bennett (D-Fla.), generally a supporter of arms requests, led the opposition. He said after the vote that the close margin indicated that future requests for MX funds may be turned down. Later this year, Congress will consider an Administration request to fund 48 additional MX missiles for the fiscal 1986 budget.

“The closeness of it, I think, indicates--when you look at the tremendous effort the President put into it--that the public doesn’t like the MX missile,” Bennett said.

Members of the Democratic leadership in the House held out only slight hope that they would be able to defeat the MX when the House votes to appropriate the money for it--the last of the four steps. But Christopher J. Matthews, spokesman for House Speaker Thomas P. (Tip) O’Neill Jr. (D-Mass.), said the cost of the weapon in an era of record-setting budget deficits is becoming a factor in the debate.

Reagan ‘Voodoo’

Rep. Bill Alexander of Arkansas, a member of the Democratic leadership, said the loss reflected the effectiveness of the President in wooing Democratic support. “The President put his voodoo on the members. . . . Many find him irresistible.”

He added, without being specific:

“The White House will give you anything you want. Some members felt they got a commitment that Republicans wouldn’t be so hard on them, (that) they wouldn’t spend so much money (to defeat them).”

Earlier, O’Neill, referring to discretionary programs such as revenue sharing and urban development action grants, in which the Administration has some leeway in deciding where the money will be spent, said:

“There is $99 billion out there the President has the right to spend. His people have the power to say where it’s going to go. That’s a little carrot they can throw out there.”

While the debate focused on the value of the MX, both as a weapon and as a Geneva “bargaining chip,” O’Neill made it clear he felt that political considerations, such as those involved in the distribution of federal funds to individual congressional districts, were the deciding factors among the small group of representatives who entered the week undecided or wavering.

“I thought we had a win yesterday afternoon,” the Speaker said, asserting that the opposition had had the support of 195 Democrats and 21 Republicans at that time.

The MX--which stands for “missile experimental”--is called the Peacekeeper by Reagan. It is intended to replace the Minuteman missile, now the key weapon in the nation’s land-based nuclear arsenal. It had been under consideration for more than a decade while debate focused on whether a deployment system could be found that would be invulnerable to Soviet attack.

The first missiles are scheduled for deployment in December, 1986, at the earliest. Congress approved funding in the fiscal 1984 budget for the first set of 21 missiles. Tuesday’s vote was on a second group of 21.

Complex Formula

Under a complex formula developed as a compromise last spring, the Senate and the House were each required to cast two affirmative votes this year before the money could be made available for production of the second 21 missiles--once to authorize the money and once to appropriate it. The Senate granted that approval in identical 55-45 votes last week.

So far, according to an estimate prepared by the General Accounting Office, $12.5 billion has been spent on the MX, and the total cost of deploying the full 100 missiles the Administration is seeking will be $26.3 billion.

However, additional billions--the precise figure has not been set--would be required to rework the Minuteman silos in which the MXs would be placed near Cheyenne, Wyo. Such “hardening” is considered a key step in making the missiles less vulnerable to a direct strike by Soviet weapons.

The Administration, taking advantage of the start of the renewed arms control talks in Geneva, brought back its chief negotiator, Democrat Max M. Kampelman, during the weekend to assist in the final lobbying drive and to replenish supporters’ ammunition for House debate.

‘Not the Time’

“I don’t think it’s the time to unilaterally stop the modernization (of the nation’s nuclear arsenal) without getting something for it,” Rep. Jerry Huckaby (D-La.) said Tuesday in the debate that preceded the vote. “Now is not the time to cut the legs out from under our negotiators now that they’re just starting in Geneva.”

Time after time, Kampelman’s message was repeated during the debate on the floor of the House.

Rep. Frank Horton (R-N.Y.) said he had received a telephone call from the arms negotiator, who told him that “rejecting or postponing this weapon would seriously damage the negotiations.”