Senate Panel Votes to Cancel Midgetman, Retire Carrier

The Senate Appropriations Committee, voting on the eve of the superpower summit, approved a $285-billion defense bill Thursday that would cancel the fledgling single-warhead Midgetman missile program and retire the World War II-era carrier Midway within five months.

That would derail one of the Administration’s most cherished initiatives, the modernization of the U.S. land-based missile force, and put a severe crimp in the Persian Gulf escort operation, in which the Midway is playing a key role from the Indian Ocean.

The Democratic-controlled panel also voted to trim President Reagan’s Strategic Defense Initiative to $3.6 billion in fiscal 1988, which began on Oct. 1. Reagan had asked for $5.2 billion for the space-based missile defense program, which is popularly called “Star Wars.” The Defense Department spent $3.7 billion on SDI research in fiscal 1987.

House Bill Differs

The House Appropriations Committee, which already has passed a $267-billion defense spending bill of its own, voted only $2.75 billion for SDI. The House committee also voted to provide the full $1.6 billion the Administration had sought to develop the Midgetman missile, and it made no effort to retire the Midway.

Budgetary concerns helped lead the Senate committee to vote to kill the Midgetman missile.

“In this budget environment, the committee concluded we just can’t keep kicking this can down the road,” a Democratic aide said of the small missile program, now in the final stages of development. “So they took the Midgetman program out behind the barn and shot it.”

At the same time, the Senate committee directed the Defense Department to step up development of a scheme to deploy 10-warhead MX missiles, which are now in fixed missile silos, on mobile rail cars.

Wants Both Missiles

The Air Force has argued that it needs to pursue both long-range missile systems. Gen. Larry D. Welch, Air Force chief of staff, told Congress earlier this year that the Air Force would need $39 billion to $42 billion to build 500 Midgetman missiles. He said the goal is to deploy the first of the missiles in late 1993.

It would be less costly--a total of $8 billion to $10 billion--to base 50 MX missiles on an elaborate railway system, Welch noted. Moreover, the weapons could be fielded on the rail cars by late 1991, he added.

Congress already has approved the deployment of 50 MX missiles to be based in Minuteman missile silos, but has blocked further production until the Air Force finds a better basing scheme.

The Navy won the committee’s approval to build an additional two aircraft carriers. But over the Navy’s objections, the lawmakers voted to cancel funds to operate the carrier Midway, commissioned in 1945, beyond April of next year.

The move came less than two weeks after the Midway, based in Japan, reported to the Indian Ocean for duty with the Mideast Joint Task Force, which is responsible for escorting U.S.-flag oil tankers in the Persian Gulf. The Midway’s aircraft are to provide air cover for escort operations and to strike at land targets if necessary.

Mothballing the Midway would save $136 million in 1988 and as much as $500 million in 1989 and 1990.