AF Plan to Kill Off Midgetman Starts Battle

The Air Force’s plan to kill the single-warhead Midgetman missile has touched off a ferocious and highly unusual debate in Congress that will have important implications for arms control negotiations with the Soviet Union and a lasting effect on the structure of the nation’s nuclear deterrent force, leaders in Congress and defense experts said Tuesday.

Indeed, the small, mobile Midgetman is a rare weapons system: one supported by Democrats in Congress and opposed by the Joint Chiefs of Staff.

The Air Force recommendation this week to Secretary of Defense Frank C. Carlucci to end the $45-billion program was motivated by budget constraints that forced the service to choose between funding a mobile version of the 10-warhead MX missile and the more expensive--but more survivable--Midgetman.

Powerful Democrats are mounting an effort to restore money for the Midgetman in next year’s budget at the expense of additional MX missiles or the controversial “Star Wars” missile defense system. But they admit that they face a difficult fight to save the missile without Pentagon support.

The struggle, being waged now in private meetings with the Reagan Administration, will erupt in full force during congressional consideration of the 1989 defense spending bill early next year.

The debate over the Midgetman is a house-of-mirrors version of ordinary defense fights in the Pentagon and on Capitol Hill. In this case, one finds liberal Democrats--not conservative Republicans--warning of a “window of vulnerability” to a surprise Soviet nuclear strike and proposing a hugely expensive new weapon to close it.

Vulnerability Denied

Republicans in Congress and the Pentagon’s Joint Chiefs--not the arms control community and the peaceniks--argue that no such vulnerability exists and that whatever problems the United States has with its land-based missile force can be solved for a quarter of the cost of the proposed Midgetman program.

“There is virtual hysteria in this town trying to save it,” said Sen. Pete Wilson (R-Calif.), a former Marine and a member of the Senate Armed Services Committee who opposes the small missile. “Midgetman should never be built--and I predict it will not be--because it is simply ineffective and much, much too expensive.”

The outcome of the debate will affect the Reagan Administration’s stance in negotiations with the Soviets on reducing long-range nuclear weapons, officials said. In the strategic arms reductions talks (commonly refered to as START) in Geneva, the Administration has proposed banning mobile land-based missiles like the Midgetman on grounds that they contribute to the arms race because it takes several warheads to destroy a single mobile missile whose location cannot be pinpointed.

The Soviet Union has two such mobile systems--the SS-24, based on rail cars, and the SS-25, which travels on trucks. The United States has none yet deployed, although the Pentagon wants to build a rail-mobile version of the MX. Advocates of the Midgetman argue that the Soviets will have no incentive to give up their mobile systems unless the United States builds its own.

Aspin Backs Midgetman

“I have never heard anybody suggest that the way to get a START agreement is to unilaterally cancel the weapons systems that are being negotiated,” said Rep. Les Aspin (D-Wis.), chairman of the House Armed Services Committee and one of Midgetman’s strongest backers. “You’ve got to build weapons systems to get the Soviets to negotiate seriously.”

The Administration contends that it will still have the mobile MX force to talk about, if Congress agrees to fund it, and that the nation has submarine-launched missiles and other survivable systems that can be relied on.

Aspin said that he would meet with Carlucci Thursday to ask him to reverse the Air Force’s recommendation. Although Carlucci’s position on Midgetman is not known, one Pentagon official said: “There’s no great enthusiasm here for Midgetman, never has been . . . . In a time of great stringency, the Midgetman is a prime candidate” for elimination.

This defense official noted also that Midgetman is the “first weapon ever crafted in Congress and literally forced on the department,” prompting some critics in the Pentagon to dub it the “Congress-man” missile.

The Pentagon argues that the mobile version of the MX would be almost as survivable as the Midgetman and costs only about $12 billion for 500 warheads, compared to $45 billion for 500 Midgetman missiles. It contends that U.S. security would be better served by channeling the additional funds into the Administration’s “Star Wars” program--sharply criticized by Democrats--which is designed to provide a space-based shield against nuclear weapons.

Carried on Large Trucks

The Midgetman is designed to be carried on large, blast-hardened trucks that could quickly disperse from bases in a 10,000-square-mile area in the southwestern United States. The system was designed to solve the perceived problem of the vulnerability of silo-based missiles, which military planners consider a tempting target for a Soviet “bolt-out-of-the-blue” first strike.

Midgetman was the centerpiece of the 1983 report from the presidential commission led by former National Security Adviser Brent Scowcroft that President Reagan appointed to study the problem of survivability of the nation’s land-based missile forces.

Scowcroft last week wrote Senate Armed Services Committee Chairman Sam Nunn (D-Ga.) to appeal for Midgetman’s continued life after the Senate Appropriations Committee deleted all funding for the missile from the budget for the fiscal year beginning next Oct. 1.

“While cost would certainly be a factor in a decision to deploy the small mobile ICBM, in the interest of preserving the currently most promising program for survivability of our strategic forces, and especially at this critical juncture of U.S.-Soviet relations, we would urge in the strongest terms that the Congress continue the funding” for Midgetman, Scowcroft wrote.

Flexibility Claimed

Scowcroft and other supporters of the small missile say that, under the limits being negotiated under START, the single-warhead Midgetman gives the United States more flexibility in its strategic deterrent than the 10-warhead MX.

With a 1,540-warhead limit for land-based intercontinental ballistic missiles already agreed to by the Soviets, the Midgetman would allow the United States to distribute its share of warheads over hundreds more launchers--and hundreds more potential targets to draw Soviet missiles--than the massive multi-warhead MX.

“If Midgetman gets cut out either by the Defense Department or those against it in the Senate because it’s so expensive, and then the MX gets cut out by arms controllers, you’re left with nothing, and that’s the worst possible outcome. I urge keeping the Midgetman going so a decision can be made later on,” Harold Brown, defense secretary in the Administration of President Jimmy Carter, said in an interview this week.

“This shouldn’t be decided in the rest of this Administration. Things are too confused. The Reagan Administration is in complete chaos” on nuclear forces planning, Brown charged.

Rep. Norman D. Dicks (D-Wash.), a strong Midgetman supporter, agreed with Brown that Midgetman should at least be kept “on life support” at reduced funding until a new President is elected.

“I’m going to try to keep enough money in the program to keep it limping along,” Dicks said. “This is the most critical national security decision we’re going to make.”