Cost-Cutting Plan to Retire 16 Ships Will Hit San Diego

Defense Secretary Frank C. Carlucci has directed the Navy to retire 16 of its older ships as part of an effort to cut $12 billion from the service’s proposed 1989 budget, a controversial move that could pull six frigates and about 2,000 sailors from the San Diego area, officials said Tuesday.

The Navy is also under orders to disband a unit of about 80 Navy aircraft known as Carrier Airwing 10, many of which are stationed at Miramar and North Island naval air stations at San Diego. The aircraft unit is to complete its operations by the end of September.

The cost-cutting moves are part of a $33-billion cut from the fiscal 1989 budget plan that the Pentagon originally proposed last year, the result of an October deficit reduction compromise between the White House and Congress. The reductions were part of the Defense Department’s final budget request for fiscal 1989, which it must deliver to the White House by Friday.

One Navy official complained bitterly of such cutbacks at a time of increased U.S. naval presence in volatile regions around the world, including the Persian Gulf, the western Pacific and the Mediterranean. “Somebody’s got to make some very important decisions about the size of the fleet we need for all those commitments,” he said. “You just can’t do it all.”

Domestically, the budget cuts could affect thousands of people in the San Diego area. An estimated 40% of the sailors serving aboard the aging frigates have families, most of whom live in the area, said Senior Chief Petty Officer Steven Hiney, a spokesman for the Naval Surface Force Pacific.

A spokesman for San Diego Mayor Maureen O’Connor said the mayor was “shocked that they were contemplating any cuts.”

“She is very adamant in her support of the Navy,” the spokesman added. “She’s advocating adding ships rather than taking them away.”

Navy Secretary James H. Webb Jr. and Adm. Carlisle A. Trost, chief of naval operations, appealed the ship retirement order in 11th-hour meetings early this week with Carlucci and his deputy, William H. Taft IV. The Navy officials argued that the order would slow the service’s progress toward President Reagan’s long-stated goal of building a 600-ship fleet.

Reserve Proposal

Webb had proposed in December to move 16 such ships to the Naval Reserves, where they would be manned more cheaply by a mixed force of active and reserve sailors. In addition, Webb had suggested that the ships reduce their steaming time and cut back crew hours, a practice used successfully by the British navy.

But Carlucci and his civilian deputies, under pressure to pare back skyrocketing military costs as part of the government’s effort to cut the burgeoning federal budget deficit, appear resolved to order the ships into mothballs.

“Webb is fighting like hell against cuts in the Navy’s forces structure,” said one Navy official, who spoke on condition of anonymity. “He’s warned he’ll go to the mat--and possibly to Capitol Hill--to fight this.”

May Appeal to Wilson

Although there is virtually no chance that the latest naval reductions can be restored before the Pentagon submits its formal funding request, Webb is hoping to appeal to congressional allies--possibly including Sen. Pete Wilson (R-Calif.), former mayor of San Diego--after the White House sends its overall budget proposal to the House and Senate.

Some San Diego area congressmen were quick to voice opposition to the proposed cuts.

“These senseless reductions mandated by Congress are very untimely in light of recent Soviet advancements in submarine warfare,” said Rep. Duncan L. Hunter (R-Coronado).

With 570 ships in operation today, the Navy had expected to surpass its goal of 600 briefly in 1989, operating a fleet of 605 ships. The budget cuts will leave the service short of its objective by 11 ships next year.

Commissioned in ‘60s

The proposed decommissionings would affect the frigates Bradley, Albert David, O’Callahan, Brooke, Ramsey and Schofield, all based in San Diego as part of the Naval Surface Force Pacific. All were commissioned in the mid-1960s, and each carries roughly 330 officers and enlisted men. Under normal schedule, the ships would begin retirement in the mid-1990s.

The frigates to be retired, all of the Brooke and Garcia class, are about 415 feet long and equipped primarily as submarine hunters. Several of the Navy’s newer frigates have served with the U.S. Mideast Force, escorting commercial vessels in the Persian Gulf region, but only the Schofield has sailed far from local waters in recent months, Hiney said.

Navy officials in San Diego said there are about 106 ships currently home-ported in San Diego, with more than 100,000 Navy personnel in the area. Garry Bonelli, military affairs specialist for the Chamber of Commerce of San Diego, estimated that the Navy presence in San Diego represents about $8 billion to the local economy this year.

Ships Eliminated

He noted that numerous ships and cruisers have been eliminated in San Diego in recent years, and that new Pacific Fleet Aegis combat system cruisers are now in danger of being lost to Alaska.

“The Navy presence has been slowly eroding,” he said. “You lose a ship here, a ship there, and after four or five years, a lot of ships are gone.”

The Navy cuts are part of a $33-billion Pentagon reduction package under which the Army is to cut its forces by 8,000 to 9,000 troops and the Air Force will leave its small single-warhead missile program, dubbed Midgetman, on a greatly reduced budget of less than $200 million. Carlucci does, however, plan to seek a 4.3% military pay raise in 1989.

The specific breakdown of the defense budget and its reductions will be announced along with the rest of Reagan’s overall budget package on Feb. 18.

Melissa Healy reported from Washington and Richard A. Serrano from San Diego.