Cheney Asks $4.6 Billion for ‘Star Wars’; Opposition Likely : Defense: The budget includes base closures, ‘program terminations.’ Congress may well shift some of the SDI funding to other programs.

Defense Secretary Dick Cheney, in a move certain to pit the Bush Administration against powerful lawmakers on Capitol Hill, has requested $4.6 billion to research and develop “Star Wars” missile defenses next year, Administration officials said Saturday.

Cheney’s proposal, forwarded to the White House late Friday as part of a budget that would shrink Pentagon spending by 2% next year, would provide an increase of $1 billion for the controversial “Star Wars” program, which received $3.6 billion in funding this year.

The proposed increase comes at a time when Cheney is readying a budget package that will include a number of military base closures and, in the words of one Pentagon official, “significant program terminations” for the 1991 fiscal year that begins next Oct. 1.

The “Star Wars” budget proposal is expected to provoke intense debate on Capitol Hill, particularly as sweeping reforms in Eastern Europe and the Soviet Union continue to reduce the apparent military threat posed by the Warsaw Pact nations.

Although sources had reported earlier that the Strategic Defense Initiative Office had proposed a $4.6-billion “Star Wars” budget to Cheney, it was not known until Saturday that the defense secretary had decided to recommend the full amount to President Bush.

The proposed $4.6-billion funding level, which prompted objections from many quarters during internal Pentagon budget deliberations, would assure that the “Star Wars” office would not have to drop any major research initiatives next year.

If approved by the President and sent to Congress in late January, a portion of the $4.6 billion is likely to be shifted to more popular programs by lawmakers, who have cut the White House’s requests by as much as $1 billion a year.

“It will just be money in the reallocation bank account,” said one congressional aide.

Cheney’s 1991 budget plan also includes cuts in personnel spending that would shrink the armed forces by almost 100,000 men and women by the end of 1991. In addition, an official said about 20,000 civilian employees of the Defense Department would be cut from the budget next year, out of a total civilian work force of 1.15 million people.

While Cheney recommended cancellation of several weapons-procurement programs, including the Army’s M-1A2 main battle tank, Administration sources said none of the military services’ highest priorities fell victim to next year’s budget ax.

Instead, sources said Cheney scaled back some planned purchases--trimming the Navy’s proposed production of 72 F/A-18 aircraft next year by about six, for instance.

In other cases, Cheney overruled service recommendations to scale back production lines, arguing that such moves ultimately would boost the price of the programs. For example, Cheney rejected an Air Force proposal to trim next year’s planned production of 150 F-16 fighter aircraft by about one-third.

Cheney accepted a Navy proposal to mothball two of its four recommissioned battleships by the end of 1991, but he made no move to retire any aircraft carriers next year. The Navy has said that anticipated budget cutbacks through 1994 could force the service to reduce its fleet from 14 to 12 aircraft carriers.

Sources said Cheney accepted the Navy’s argument that the two battleships could be reactivated in as little as six months if needed, while a retired aircraft carrier would take longer to prepare for service.

Navy officials said Cheney’s recommendation is likely to send into retirement the battleship New Jersey, based in Long Beach, leaving the newer and better-equipped Missouri as the West Coast’s only battleship. The Missouri, also based in Long Beach, is scheduled to move soon to a new home port in Hawaii.

A senior defense official said that in addition to such changes to the Pentagon’s operating and purchasing plans, Cheney would propose management reforms that would save almost $10 billion in 1991 alone. That number greatly exceeds the $2.5 billion in savings that the management overhauls were expected to net next year.

It also represents the lion’s share of the savings that the President demanded when he directed Cheney earlier this month to prepare a 1991 budget that would hold military spending at $292.15 billion.

Congress traditionally has approached such promised savings with skepticism. Cheney’s unwillingness to cut spending on “Star Wars” or other controversial programs, such as the B-2 bomber, is certain to draw criticism that the 1991 budget request represents a “business-as-usual” response to fiscal pressures and the sweeping changes in Eastern Europe and the Soviet Union.

Since 1983, the “Star Wars” program, also known as the Strategic Defense Initiative, has overseen research and development of futuristic technologies that could be used to defend the United States and its allies against an incoming missile attack.

But as requested funding for the program has grown from $1 billion in 1984 to $4.8 billion last year, lawmakers increasingly have viewed “Star Wars” as a potential source of funding for other, more popular defense programs.

On Friday, Cheney defended his decision to seek an increase in the “Star Wars” budget for 1991, predicting that missile defense research is “probably more important in the future than it’s been in the past.”

Calling himself “a big advocate of SDI,” Cheney acknowledged that his proposal will meet with certain opposition on Capitol Hill. “Unfortunately, Congress has not supported it as aggressively as we would like,” he said.

Staff writer John M. Broder contributed to this story.

SOVIETS TOUR SDI LAB

Some Soviets toured a San Clemente area lab involved in ‘Star Wars’ research. A21