MX Foes in House Scramble to Sway Votes

Opponents of the MX missile, having suffered three congressional defeats in two weeks, scrambled Wednesday to turn around the handful of votes they need in today’s final vote, which would appropriate $1.5 million to build 21 new missiles.

House Speaker Thomas P. (Tip) O’Neill Jr. (D-Mass.) told reporters that an “all-out attempt will be made” to chip away at the six-vote margin that the missile received Tuesday in the House. But he conceded: “I don’t know how successful it will be.” By late Wednesday, it appeared that opponents thus far had failed to add to their numbers.

Following the lead of the Senate, which in two votes last week approved funds for the 10-warhead nuclear missile, the House voted Tuesday to authorize the spending. The second vote today--to appropriate the funds authorized by Tuesday’s action--will be the final of the four hurdles the 21 new MX missiles must clear.

Opponents are hoping that, by stressing the missile’s growing cost, they can succeed where their previous arguments failed. With an all-out effort by the Reagan Administration to convince a majority in Congress that the MX is needed as a “bargaining chip” at U.S.-Soviet arms talks in Geneva, the missile’s supporters were able to win over substantial numbers of House members who say they have misgivings about the effectiveness of the missile itself.

Opponents Recruit Glenn

Leaders in the fight against the missile recruited Sen. John Glenn (D-Ohio), a former astronaut who they said has an unimpeachable record on national security, to talk to a half-dozen pro-MX Democrats they hoped to sway.

Glenn told reporters after the closed-door session: “I’m for a stronger defense than the MX will ever give us.” He insisted that the cost of building the missile could be more than double the $21 billion that the Reagan Administration has estimated would be necessary to deploy 100 missiles and produce an additional 123 as backups. Before this year’s votes on 21 new missiles, Congress had already approved an initial batch of 21.

Opponents hoped also to convince marginal supporters that a vote against the missile today could pay off politically. Rep. Edward J. Markey (D-Mass.) said that congressmen who voted Tuesday to authorize spending for the missile “can have it both ways” by voting today against appropriating money for it.

“What we are going to see is a distinction by members of the House between money being put on the table in Geneva as a bargaining chip and the money being spent,” he said.

Meanwhile, the White House worried that some hesitant supporters might avoid taking a stand on the missile by being absent for the final vote.

“A year ago, some of the people that were favorable on it did not show for the second vote,” White House spokesman Larry Speakes noted, and the White House was defeated in its efforts to obtain the $1.5 billion immediately. As a result, the White House has had to wait until this spring--and pass four test votes in Congress--before it actually could receive the MX funds it requested more than a year ago.

May Pressure Republicans

If today’s vote is close, Republican leaders may be able to apply pressure and reverse the votes of some of the 24 Republican congressmen members who opposed the missile Tuesday. But Rep. Tom Loeffler (R-Tex.), one of the House Republicans’ chief vote-counters, insisted: “We don’t have much leverage at all. Yesterday, we were at the peak of our ability.”

However, he said: “At this point, I don’t see any slippage.”

And, although leading MX opponents were dropping hints late Wednesday that they were seeing “some wavering,” one aide to the Democratic leadership said that no votes had been changed. “You just can’t switch people in a short time,” the aide said.