Ex-Aide Says Defense Chiefs Eased Military Spending Curbs

A former Pentagon official on Saturday accused former Defense Secretary Caspar W. Weinberger and Frank C. Carlucci, the department’s current chief, of slackening the military’s spending controls.

Lawrence J. Korb, Weinberger’s manpower chief for four years until leaving the Pentagon in 1985, said in a television interview that when Carlucci was Weinberger’s deputy, the two men “basically loosened the controls.”

A Defense Department spokesman said later that the management changes were consistent with recommendations made by a government commission on efficiency.

Speaking on the Cable News Network program “Newsmaker Saturday,” Korb said the new, decentralized style of management “was totally different from all of their predecessors” and occurred as the Reagan Administration was boosting the Pentagon’s budget.

“So, in fact, by putting all the money in and then loosening the controls, they created a situation in which they themselves and the people on their staffs didn’t know anything about it,” Korb said.

Korb for years has been a bitter critic of some Pentagon spending practices, and he has filed a suit against some of the figures mentioned in the unfolding Defense Department procurement scandal.