Weinberger Visits U.S. Air Base in Japan

Defense Secretary Caspar W. Weinberger reviewed Japanese troops Friday on Hokkaido, then visited a U.S. air base that has F-16 fighter planes that can reach Soviet targets, drawing attention to what one of his aides called “an increased and significant Soviet threat.”

“Japan and the United States do not threaten anyone’s security, but our democratic systems and free economies . . . are a real threat to the Soviet Bloc . . . and a beacon of freedom unequaled in the world,” Weinberger said.

Japanese forces put on a display for Weinberger, the first American secretary of defense to visit Hokkaido, the northernmost Japanese island. Helicopters and tanks were deployed near the town of Eniwa, about 460 miles north of Tokyo and 200 miles south of the Soviet Union’s Sakhalin Island.

Before going on to Tokyo, Weinberger visited Misawa Air Base on northern Honshu, 500 miles southeast of Vladivostok, where the Soviet Far East Fleet is based. The first of two U.S. Air Force squadrons of F-16 fighters was stationed at the base last year. The second squadron is scheduled to arrive by 1988.

Will Praise ‘Success’

According to a Defense Department official traveling with Weinberger, the secretary, who has criticized Japan in the past, will on this occasion praise Japan for its defense effort. Weinberger, the official said, will tell Prime Minister Yasuhiro Nakasone here today that “Japanese defense issues for the United States have been transformed from a problem area to a success story.”

“Japan has a meaningful defense program with realistic goals, and is meeting them,” the official said.

He said that a five-year buildup approved by Nakasone’s Cabinet last fall, if fully funded, “will have results that would be astounding to most Americans.”

Lists Future Forces

In the early 1990s, he said, Japan will have 60 destroyers, compared with only 18 combat surface ships for the U.S. 7th Fleet; 96 PC-3 surveillance aircraft, compared with no more than 25 for the 7th Fleet, and 187 F-15 fighters, or “more than we have defending the continental United States.”

In the past, Weinberger has said repeatedly that the United States wanted Japan to be able by 1989 to defend its sea lanes out to a distance of 1,000 miles, a goal not included in the new five-year defense buildup. Asked about those statements by Weinberger, the Pentagon official said the defense secretary now believes that “the prospect of (Japan) getting the equipment in the early 1990s would meet our goal.”

Japan’s defense budget this year calls for spending 3.3 trillion yen ($19.1 billion), slightly less than 1% of estimated gross national product. The figure is 6.58% more than last year, a gain the official said makes the U.S. Defense Department “a bit envious” after a 6% reduction in the U.S. defense budget last year and prospects for more cuts this year.