Senate Rejects Added Funding for ‘Star Wars’

The Senate refused by a 50-44 vote Friday to increase “Star Wars” spending by $500 million, setting up another potential fight with President Reagan over the budget for his cherished missile defense program.

“This is a preview of the presidential campaign,” Sen. John McCain (R-Ariz.), a supporter of the increase, told his colleagues during the brief debate.

Supporters of the increase for the fiscal year starting Oct. 1 “believe in protecting our security,” McCain said, whereas “opponents believe in undermining our security.”

‘Hype and Flimflam”

But Sen. J. Bennett Johnston (D-La.) said that “Star Wars,” officially known as the Strategic Defense Initiative, “has been characterized by hype and flimflam” and urged that military spending increases go for needed improvements in conventional defenses instead of research projects.

The decision came as the Senate began a second attempt to write a Pentagon budget bill.

Reagan vetoed the first Pentagon measure approved by the Democratic-controlled Congress, partly because the bill cut too deeply into Reagan’s request for the SDI.

Wants $4.8 Billion

Reagan wanted $4.8 billion for “Star Wars” next year, contrasted with the current $3.9-billion figure. The vetoed bill would have authorized $4 billion.

The measure now on the Senate floor is also based on a $4-billion SDI budget. Sen. Malcolm Wallop (R-Wyo.) made the motion to add $500 million to that amount.

Wallop said congressional reductions in the SDI budget mean that the entire range of possible anti-missile technologies cannot be pursued.

‘Crucial Shortfall’

But Sen. Carl Levin (D-Mich.) argued: “We have a crucial shortfall in conventional capability. Rather than a huge increase in SDI, we can far better use this money for needed improvements in conventional material.”

The Senate is trying to finish the bill before it leaves next week for a recess that will not end until after Labor Day.

The appropriations bill that passes the Senate will go to a conference committee to be reconciled with the companion, but different, measure passed seven weeks ago by the House.

Earlier Friday, the Senate voted 75 to 20 to let Japan buy the Navy’s sophisticated Aegis air defense system to help patrol the Western Pacific.