Conferees Said to Retain B-2, Cut ‘Star Wars’

House and Senate conferees Wednesday reached accord on virtually all remaining issues involving the $305-billion 1990 defense budget, trimming the “Star Wars” anti-missile program but keeping the costly and controversial B-2 Stealth bomber alive, congressional sources said.

Although a number of relatively small questions remained unresolved Wednesday night, committee leaders are likely to announce the budget agreement today, sources said. A House aide cautioned that the deal could unravel in a series of meetings scheduled for this morning but added that major problems are unlikely.

The bill is expected to emerge as a series of compromises on defense spending priorities between the two houses as well as between Congress and the White House. House members failed in an effort to gut “Star Wars.” But they won a reprieve for two aircraft programs--the F-14D and the V-22--that the Senate and the Administration had wanted to kill.

Congressional Democrats and the Administration settled a sharp disagreement over which of two mobile missiles to build by authorizing more than $1 billion to develop both.

After conference committee approval, the spending measure will go to the full House and Senate. Under parliamentary rules, lawmakers can approve or disapprove the measure, but they cannot amend it.

Aides said that the conference leaders, Sen. Sam Nunn (D-Ga.) and Rep. Les Aspin (D-Wis.), chairmen of the Senate and House Armed Services committees, are confident that President Bush will sign the bill.

The budget plan is for the fiscal year that began Oct. 1. The Defense Department has been operating under a stopgap spending measure since then.

Members of the conference committee approved $3.57 billion for the “Star Wars” space defense program, more than $1 billion less than the Administration requested and less than last year’s funding of $3.7 billion. The figure split the difference between the $2.8 billion voted earlier by the House and $4.3 billion approved by the Senate.

But in a victory for the Administration and the Air Force, Congress authorized production of two of the $530-million B-2 bombers in fiscal year 1990 and five in 1991. The Administration had sought a total of six bombers over the two years.

A congressional aide said that the defense bill was crafted to meet members’ parochial interests as well as to avoid a veto by President Bush. The President had threatened to veto the bill if he thought that “Star Wars” or B-2 funding was too low.

The committee reached its compromise after seven weeks of debate on a variety of other issues, from funding for the rail version of the MX missile to continued production of the Navy’s F-14D fighter.

Lawmakers authorized $1.28 billion for putting 50 multi-warhead MX intercontinental missiles on rail cars, as well as continued research on the Midgetman single-warhead missile, a favorite of congressional Democrats.

The two-missile deal ratified the Administration’s decision not to choose between the two mobile missile systems, but rather to fund both. The plan allows Secretary of Defense Dick Cheney and the Air Force to decide how much of the $1.28 billion to spend on each system.

The fate of the V-22 tilt-rotor aircraft, which takes off like a helicopter but flies like an airplane, was left uncertain. The conferees included funding for V-22 research and development only, postponing a decision on production until next year. The V-22 program potentially would cost $26 billion.

Cheney had recommended that the F-14D and the V-22 be terminated, arguing that the Pentagon cannot afford them. The Navy will be permitted to buy 18 new F-14Ds, manufactured by the Grumman Corp. on New York’s Long Island, for $1.4 billion. But the deal calls for the production line to be permanently halted after the new planes are completed, committee aides said.

New York lawmakers lobbied heavily for the program, which was the subject of the most bitter debate in the budget conference, aides said. The Senate had voted to accept Cheney’s recommendation to kill the plane, while House members succeeded in keeping it alive for one more year, temporarily preserving more than 5,000 jobs on populous Long Island.

“Star Wars” supporters immediately blasted the funding cut for the space program--formally known as the Strategic Defense Initiative--demanding that Bush veto the entire bill.

“If President Bush doesn’t take this leadership action on behalf of the future of SDI and the American people, then he will have to share some of the blame with Congress for the eventual demise of the SDI program and its potential for providing a real defense for the American people,” said John Kwapisz of the Center for Peace and Freedom, a strong supporter of SDI.