Development of Midgetman to Be Pushed

Despite questions about the Midgetman missile’s ability to survive Soviet defenses and mandatory budget cuts, the Pentagon is planning to begin full-scale development of the weapon next year and will seek a 300% increase in its funding over the next two years, a senior Pentagon official said Sunday.

The Pentagon’s plans, contained in budget and other documents that Defense Secretary Caspar W. Weinberger will make public this week, advance the expected recommendations of a Pentagon advisory panel and would keep work on the weapon on schedule for an initial deployment in December, 1992.

The Midgetman--a small, single-warhead, mobile intercontinental ballistic missile--was recommended in 1983 by a presidential commission on strategic forces modernization.

A Complement to MX

That commission, headed by retired Air Force Lt. Gen. Brent Scowcroft, a former White House national security adviser, viewed the weapon as a complement to the 10-warhead MX missile, and its report gave impetus to initial plans to build 1,000 small missiles.

The new weapon would be fired from a hardened launcher, and its proponents argue that its mobility--allowing the arsenal to be dispersed over at least 12,000 acres in the western United States during a period of high East-West tension--and the protection given the launcher would help it survive a Soviet attack.

A senior Pentagon official, who spoke on the condition that he not be identified by name, said that Weinberger’s reports this week would say that continued work on the Midgetman has “complicated Soviet planning.”

“The missile’s single warhead and mobility would make it a low-value target that is hard to find,” he said, reading from one report. The document went on to state: “We are requesting funds to initiate full-scale development of the small ICBM and hardened mobile launcher” in fiscal 1987, which begins Oct. 1.

The official said the fiscal 1987 budget request that President Reagan will send to Congress on Wednesday would seek $1.396 billion for the missile--reflecting a sharp increase in spending plans despite the cuts imposed by the Gramm-Rudman balanced budget legislation and efforts within the Administration to trim the federal budget deficit.

$462 Million Spent in ’85

In fiscal 1985, which ended last Sept. 30, $462 million was spent on the missile. In the current fiscal year, $624 million has been allocated. But, the official said, the Midgetman spending would jump more than 300% over two years, to a proposed $2.6 billion in fiscal 1988, under the budget plan Reagan will submit this week.

“In the Gramm-Rudman environment, it will get a hard look,” said one congressional staff member who has been critical of the Midgetman plans. According to the latest estimate, 500 Midgetman missiles--half the number proposed by the Scowcroft commission in 1983--will cost a total of $50 billion, the congressional source said.

With domestic programs prime targets for cuts in the Gramm-Rudman climate, the expanded Midgetman program seems assured of close scrutiny when Congress looks over a Pentagon budget, which informed members expect will propose a $311-billion defense spending authorization in fiscal 1987.

At least as controversial as the expected plan to more than double missile funding is an anticipated request for $4.3 billion for development of the Strategic Defense Initiative space defense system. This would amount to a boost of more that 50% in funding for the program popularly known as “Star Wars.”

MX Purchases Limited

Opponents of the Midgetman argue that it will cost considerably more than another 50 MX missiles, each carrying 10 warheads. Pentagon officials say that although current legislation has limited the Pentagon’s MX purchases, the ultimate objective is to deploy 100 of the huge missiles. Congress has cut in half the Administration’s plan to deploy 100 MX missiles, pending development of a new basing method.

Moreover, changes may be called for in the new Midgetman missile: A classified Air Force report says that without “penetration aids” to help the missile escape Soviet defenses, it would have a “very low” likelihood of reaching its target, according to a congressional source.

Therefore, such radar-fooling devices as metal chaff and dummy warheads would be necessary, raising the weight from the 30,000-pound limit placed by Congress to as much as 37,000 to 40,000 pounds.

‘Getting on the Bandwagon’

“Everyone is getting on the bandwagon that it will have to have penetration aids,” the congressional source said.

The Pentagon advisory panel, made up of experts on strategic weapons and directed by John M. Deutch, provost of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, is close to finishing its study on the scientific aspects of the single-warhead missile, according to the Pentagon official. It is expected to deliver its report to Weinberger later this month.

The official said that although a recommendation of the full-scale development favored by the Pentagon appeared likely, the most difficult questions--dealing with maintaining the missile’s mobility while protecting it from the effect of a surprise Soviet missile strike--remained to be resolved.

Survivability of MX

In addition, one well-informed source said the panel is “looking carefully at ways” to improve the survivability of the 195,000-pound, 10-warhead MX missile that has been the centerpiece of the Reagan Administration’s nuclear force modernization, and that this element of the group’s report is “not insignificant.” The current plan calls for deployment in existing Minuteman missile silos.

The source, speaking on the condition of anonymity, said the panel was focusing on a vertical, multiple shelter system of hardened canisters, and on some form of ballistic missile defense built around the missile fields. But, he said, while “the small missile in a hard, mobile launcher is a promising thing to move along with,” the multiple protective shelter the panel is considering for the MX could still prove difficult to defend if Soviet missile accuracy “gets good enough.”