Pentagon Will Seek Near 50% MX Budget Cut

The Pentagon’s original fiscal 1989 budget plan for the MX missile, long a centerpiece of the Reagan Administration’s strategic modernization program, will be cut almost in half under a proposal approved by Defense Secretary Frank C. Carlucci, Pentagon officials said Thursday.

The proposal will request funding for 12 MX missiles, instead of the 21 originally sought, as part of the Defense Department’s budget plan for next year, which will be sent to the White House today.

The MX request represents a saving of at least $400 million for the Pentagon, which has come under increasing pressure to cut spending to lower the federal deficit.

“The general assumption was that 12 missiles was about as much as we were going to get from Congress,” one Pentagon official said. “We’re looking at reality, and this is the first year that the (defense) department has been really closed in a vise.”

Carlucci’s MX plan reflects a marked departure from the fiscal strategy employed by his predecessor, Caspar W. Weinberger, who doggedly clung to the Administration’s budgetary plans in the face of strong congressional opposition. Since 1983, when the Pentagon began seeking funds to build the missile, Weinberger’s MX requests were consistently slashed on Capitol Hill, sometimes in half.

The Administration is seeking an ultimate arsenal of 100 MXs, which are intercontinental ballistic missiles that have pinpoint accuracy. The Air Force already has deployed 33 missiles in silos at F. E. Warren Air Force Base outside Cheyenne, Wyo., and plans to put another 17 in such dug-in shelters.

Congress, fearing that the silos leave the missiles open to counterattack, has told the Air Force that it would not approve the deployment of more than 50 additional MXs until the Pentagon finds an acceptable alternative to the current basing system.

Favors Rail Cars

On Monday, Carlucci said he favors a plan to base the entire 100-missile force on rail cars. The defense secretary told the Senate Armed Services Committee that the missiles “ought to be taken out of fixed silos and put on a mobile system,” where, he argued, they would be less vulnerable to a Soviet nuclear attack.

But Carlucci’s remarks about a revised basing plan for the MX, coupled with the reduced budget request, could backfire and serve only to harm the missile program. Among some lawmakers, these changes have raised doubts about the general direction and effectiveness of the weapons program.

Pentagon officials insist that Carlucci and the Administration remain committed to fielding a system of 100 MX missiles. Carlucci’s concession to Congress, they stressed, merely represents a difference of personal styles between the secretary--known widely as a savvy negotiator--and his more uncompromising predecessor.

“Weinberger was more rigid, while Carlucci is more amenable, less abrasive” in dealing with Congress, said one senior official who has worked with both men. “But the outcome is going to be the same. Congress will be pleased to have somebody that doesn’t come up and say, ‘You’re wrong, you’re wrong’--but they’re not going to give you a nickel more” than the cost of 12 missiles, he added.

And, “Carlucci recognizes that,” the official said.

Seen as Forced Cutback

Another official called the scaled-back MX request “just a budget cut the Air Force was forced to make,” given the overall spending reductions ordered by Carlucci as a result of deficit-reduction negotiations between Congress and the White House last October.

“I don’t see any softening” of the Administration’s commitment to eventually deploy a force of 100 MX missiles, he added.

Nevertheless, the modified request could slow the missile program at a critical juncture, given that President Reagan’s successor may not share his commitment to deploying a 100-missile force.

In addition, the lower proposed MX production rate will make the missiles more expensive, officials said.