‘88 ‘Star Wars’ Funds Slashed by House Panel

President Reagan’s $5.3-billion request for the “Star Wars” space-based missile defense system in fiscal 1988 was slashed to $3.5 billion Tuesday by the House Armed Services Committee.

The $1.8-billion cut was approved by a vote of 25 to 23.

Committee Chairman Les Aspin (D-Wis.) said that the narrow margin of the committee vote suggests that the funding level will be further reduced by the full House, which is less sympathetic to the program than the Armed Services Committee. Aspin predicted that the House would freeze next year’s funding at the current level of $3.2 billion. Fiscal 1988 begins on Oct. 1.

Part of Overall Bill

The funding for Star Wars--or the Strategic Defense Initiative, as it is known officially--is part of an overall $304-billion defense spending bill that the House Armed Services Committee is expected to approve today. Although the President requested $312 billion for defense, the full House is expected to project military spending at a level of $298 billion--the same as this year and well under the figure expected to be approved by the committee--when it passes its budget resolution later this week.

Rep. Jim Courter (R-N.J.) predicted that SDI funding would spark an even more emotional debate than usual in the Congress this year because conservatives such as Courter are pressing Reagan to move toward deployment of some elements of the system by the early 1990s. He noted that many opponents of the program who have voted in the past for pure research on SDI will be increasingly reluctant to support it as deployment is discussed.

“It’s becoming more difficult to say maybe,” said Courter.

‘I’m Crystallizing Debate’

Courter will offer an amendment today to require the President to initiate development and testing of SDI systems to achieve an initial operational capability by 1993. “Even if I lose, I’m crystallizing the debate,” he said.

The committee is expected to reject Courter’s amendment and instead adopt language calling on the President to abide by what is known as the “narrow” interpretation of the 1972 Anti-Ballistic Missile Treaty, which would prohibit SDI testing and deployment.

The $3.5-billion funding level of the Strategic Defense Initiative was proposed by Rep. Duncan L. Hunter (R-Coronado) after the committee rejected two other alternative funding levels. The committee voted 30 to 18 against a proposal by Courter to set it a $4 billion, and 40 to 10 against an amendment by Rep. Charles E. Bennett (D-Fla.) to cut it to $2.85 billion. A House subcommittee recommendation of $3.32 billion was not voted upon.

Restores Submarine Funds

At the same time, the committee decided to rescue the Navy’s newest submarine, which had been cut from the budget last week by a House Armed Services subcommittee on grounds that it would be inferior to the Soviet Akula-class submarine, which was launched in 1984.

By voice vote, the committee restored funding of $213 million in fiscal 1988 for the new submarine, known as the SSN21 Seawolf class. In addition, the committee agreed to an additional $15 million to fund improvements for the existing Los Angeles class SSN688.

“This issue is far more important than deployment of SDI,” committee staff expert Anthony R. Battista, told the panel. “I think it’s a pretty close call between the Akula, which is in the water now, and our submarine . . . (which) may be obsolete by the time it hits the water.”

Backs MX Rail System

The committee also voted 30 to 20 to provide $250 million to develop railroad trains that would carry MX missiles, which are currently being deployed in Minuteman silos. The rail-mobile system was proposed by the Reagan Administration after Congress refused to fund any more than 50 MX missiles to be placed in existing silos.

Aspin, who opposed the rail-mobile funding proposed by Rep. William L. Dickenson (R-Ala.), predicted that it would be eliminated on the House floor. Aspin and other supporters of a much smaller, single-warhead mobile missile known as Midgetman see the Administration’s proposal to put MX missiles on railroad cars as an effort to kill Midgetman.

The committee also agreed that $232 million should be spent next year on the Navy’s new series of home ports. The Navy had wanted $337 million, but the committee reduced it in part by delaying the expenditure of $22 million in San Francisco for work there on a base for the battleship Missouri.