Support of MX May Hurt Armed Services Panel Chief : Democrats Feel Betrayed by Aspin

When Rep. Les Aspin, the new chairman of the House Armed Services Committee, finished addressing the House in support of the MX missile Tuesday, he received a standing ovation from Republican members.

When he said that those who voted against the MX were helping the Soviet Union, hisses erupted on the House floor--from Democrats. And when the House voted 219 to 213 at the end of the day to release $1.5 billion to build a second set of 21 missiles, he was congratulated--by House Minority Leader Robert H. Michel, a Republican.

All of which is a problem for Aspin. He is a Democrat. And some of his colleagues, who recently awarded him the coveted Armed Services Committee chairmanship, thinking that he was committed to oppose MX funding, believe that he has betrayed them.

Now he is faced with the task of regaining their confidence.

“He’s got a problem,” said one senior Pentagon official, echoing an assessment made on Capitol Hill by both supporters and opponents of President Reagan’s funding request for the controversial 10-warhead missile.

“The master legislative packagers, through the years, have been people who have had a lot of political currency. The only political currency you can spend here is the worth of your word. Les may think he did not make commitments, but dozens of people around here think he did,” Rep. Les AuCoin (D-Ore.) said.

Aspin’s problem dates to January, when the Democratic Caucus decided to name him to replace Rep. Melvin Price (D-Ill.) as chairman of the Armed Services Committee. During a private session of the caucus, Aspin made comments that some MX opponents took to contain a promise that, despite his past support for the weapon, he would find a way to oppose it.

“He allowed them to think he was saying something he wasn’t,” an aide to House Speaker Thomas P. (Tip) O’Neill Jr. (D-Mass.) said.

The new chairman has been the object of a feeling of bitterness among his fellow Democrats. “I hear it in the cloakroom,” the Speaker’s aide said. “I was shocked at how dramatic that was.”

Chance to Prove Loyalty

But he has the opportunity during the coming months to prove his loyalty to the liberals and moderates who supported him in January.

Aspin, whose gadfly tactics as a young House member from Wisconsin did little to endear him to the Pentagon, where he was once an aide to Defense Secretary Robert S. McNamara, emerged in recent years as one of the House Democrats considered most influential on arms issues.

When asked whether Aspin’s handling of the MX debate would affect his long-term influence on Democratic policy-making in the House, Rep. Edward J. Markey (D-Mass.), a leading MX opponent, said: “If it is a pattern of conduct, then it will be different than if this is an isolated incident.”

Rep. Nicholas Mavroules (D-Mass.) said that, if Aspin “continues in the same vein, he’s in serious trouble in terms of retaining his credibility. Les has been hurt by this, a lot more than perhaps he realizes.”

But one aide to a member of the House Democratic leadership said that, “if we can ever extricate ourselves from this MX thing, (Aspin) will be a perfect chairman for what most Democrats want to see happen”--the enacting of a defense budget “that looks lean and mean.”

Aspin has uncharacteristically avoided reporters in recent weeks. An aide who said that his boss would visit the House press gallery shortly after Tuesday’s vote had to quickly correct himself that afternoon to report that Aspin would have no post-vote comments.

One of Aspin’s committee allies, Rep. Dave McCurdy (D-Okla.), predicted that the dispute “will blow over in time” and said the chairman is “looking at making an imprint down the way.”

At the Pentagon, the senior official said that Aspin had been involved “in almost all of our strategy sessions.” He added: “His support was critical to us in the House, and we’re indebted to him.”

Another Pentagon source said that Aspin, contemplating battles on military retirement reform and other issues that might draw Pentagon opposition, gained credibility in the defense community by his stand on the MX.

“He will be a lot more effective chairman. He carried a good bloc of people with him,” this source said, adding that, at the Pentagon, “they don’t forget that easily.”

Rep. Norman D. Dicks (D-Wash.), who voted for the MX funding, said: “The people who are really offended with Mr. Aspin are a handful.”

Dicks said that, in coming months, Aspin “will have the chance to show them . . . he is a moderate, that he’ll go after waste, fraud and abuse” and take the lead in other fights.