Bush Backs Putting MX on Rail Cars : To Seek Funds for Midgetman Work, Ask Less for SDI

President Bush decided Friday to ask Congress to transfer the nation’s stock of 50 MX intercontinental missiles from silos to rail cars so that they would be less vulnerable to Soviet attack, an Administration official said.

At the same time, the official said, Bush will seek funds to continue to develop--but not to deploy--the smaller Midgetman missile, which could be mounted on trucks.

Bush reached his decision after a lengthy meeting at the White House that included Defense Secretary Dick Cheney, Secretary of State James A. Baker III and Brent Scowcroft, Bush’s national security adviser.

‘Star Wars’ Funding

Sources said also that Bush will ask Congress for about $4.7 billion for the “Star Wars” anti-missile program next year, substantially less than the $5.9 billion President Ronald Reagan had requested in his final budget but more than most congressional Democrats have been willing to spend.

Bush’s “Star Wars” proposal would accelerate work on ground-based systems of rocket interceptors and continue research on more futuristic space-based weapons, but at a reduced pace from that recommended by Reagan. The current budget contains $3.9 billion for the program, formally known as the Strategic Defense Initiative, or SDI.

The decision on intercontinental missiles represented a compromise between Cheney on one side and Scowcroft and congressional Democrats on the other.

Cheney had recommended to Bush that the Midgetman be scrapped because of its cost--$24 billion for 500 missiles with one warhead each.

Same Number of Warheads

By contrast, pulling the existing 50 MX missiles from their silos and placing them on flatbed rail cars would cost $5.4 billion, according to the Air Force. And, because each MX missile carries 10 warheads, that option would leave the United States with the same 500 nuclear warheads on mobile missiles that would be difficult for the Soviet Union to find.

However, leading Democrats in Congress have urged the Administration to deploy a mobile Midgetman missile.

They argue that 500 Midgetman missiles would provide the Soviets with less tempting targets than 50 MX missiles would represent. Congressional leaders have threatened to kill an Administration proposal to mount MX missiles on rail cars unless it also sought funds for the smaller missile.

Scowcroft has long supported small mobile missiles. He was chairman of a 1983 commission that urged building a mobile single-warhead missile as a means of ensuring the survivability of the nation’s land-based missile force.

The national security adviser spoke up forcefully in favor of the Midgetman in a White House meeting on Tuesday. Cheney presented the Defense Department view that the country did not need the small missile and could not afford it.

Cheney acknowledged the possibility that his view would not prevail when he said Tuesday: “It may be we come up with some kind of mix out of the options that have been provided.”

A possible compromise that was discussed Tuesday would be to take about $300 million of the savings from the reduced “Star Wars” fund request and apply it to continued development of the Midgetman, sources said.

Keeping Midgetman Alive

The Midgetman program could be kept alive at that level for several years, with the cost rising later if the government decided to deploy the missiles, Pentagon officials said.

One Administration official, a strong MX advocate, called the proposed missile compromise “preemptive surrender.” He complained that such deals only embolden congressional Democrats to meddle in executive branch decision-making.

Other defense experts warned that stretching out weapons programs increases their cost and often produces weapons that are obsolete by the time they are fielded. The Air Force has warned that a decision will have to be made immediately if the Administration wants to deploy the Midgetman by the mid-1990s.

However, some members of Congress found virtue in a compromise linking a rail-mobile MX with a limited Midgetman development program. Sen. J. James Exon (D-Neb.) said that that combination “would be unbeatable . . . . I think (Bush) could win with this.”

Retaliation Possible

But, if Bush seeks no funding for the Midgetman, he said, congressional partisans of the smaller missile would probably override him and retaliate against the MX proposal. “Then the wimp image will reappear, I think,” Exon said.

A key component of Bush’s “Star Wars” proposal would be development of a weapon known as “brilliant pebbles,” swarms of small space-based interceptors designed to knock out Soviet ballistic missiles headed toward the United States, sources said.

Because of budget constraints, however, the entire “Star Wars” program will be pushed back about two years, officials said. The earliest possible deployment of any components--probably ground-based--is now set for sometime after the year 2000, they said.