Bush Pays Tribute to Col. Higgins : Tells War Dept. Salute He Was ‘a Symbol of Courage’

President Bush, his voice choked by emotion, paid tribute today to Marine Lt. Col. William R. Higgins, slain by his Lebanese captors, as “the symbol of the courage” of American servicemen.

Bush coupled his praise for Higgins and for others in uniform with an appeal for Congress to restore cuts it made in nuclear weapons programs.

“Today, it is not a shortage of rifles that threatens to undermine America’s ability to keep the peace,” Bush said. “To preserve the peace today we must be strong in other ways. This means that we must rely on advanced technology, not the strategic equivalent of the horse cavalry.”

War Department Anniversary

Bush spoke at a ceremony at Ft. Myer marking the 200th anniversary of the founding of the War Department, the forerunner of the Department of Defense.

Later, Bush flew to Fort A. P. Hill in Bowling Green, Va., where he urged about 30,000 youths at the 12th National Boy Scout Jamboree to steer their friends away from crack cocaine and other drugs.

He took with him three members of his Administration who were Eagle Scouts: Transportation Secretary Samuel K. Skinner; Andrew Card, the deputy to Chief of Staff John H. Sununu, and Robert M. Gates, deputy national security adviser.

At Ft. Myer, just across the Potomac River from Washington, Bush said in a halting voice:

“We cannot leave here today without pausing to salute one who stands as the symbol of the courage that burns in the breast of every American in uniform, one Marine who has been very much in our thoughts, Lt. Col. Higgins, William Richard Higgins.”

Retaliatory Hanging

Higgins, head of a 75-member U.N. peacekeeping team, was kidnaped in south Lebanon on Feb. 17, 1987. His captors said last Monday that he had been hanged in retaliation for the Israeli kidnaping of a Muslim cleric.

Putting in a plug for nuclear modernization, Bush said, “The United States today requires a closely integrated strategic program designed to enhance our strength, bolster deterrence and facilitate arms control.”

He said the United States must redeploy the 10-warhead MX missile from fixed silos and put them onto rail cars, and at the same time develop and deploy a smaller, single-warhead Midgetman missiles.

He also pushed for more money for the radar-evading B-2 Stealth bomber and the Star Wars missile-defense system.