Missile Systems May Face Ax, Nunn Warns

Sen. Sam Nunn, the leading Democratic voice on military issues, warned Friday that Congress may kill one or perhaps both of the nation’s proposed mobile missile systems if President Bush does not significantly change his position in strategic arms talks with the Soviet Union.

Even as Secretary of State James A. Baker III negotiated arms issues in Moscow, the Senate Armed Services Committee chairman asserted that Bush is “out of sync” with a drastically diminished threat from the Soviets.

In a breakfast session with Times editors and reporters, the Georgia senator urged that Bush propose abandoning the MX rail-mobile missile--a major pillar of a modernized U.S. nuclear defense--in exchange for having the Soviets scrap their similar SS-24 system.

Currently, the Administration is pushing for mobile deployment of both the multiple-warhead MX and the single-warhead Midgetman nuclear missiles.

Nunn also predicted a substantial reduction in the production of the B-2 Stealth bomber, projected to cost $68 billion if all 132 planes are produced as planned.

His remarks buttressed growing Democratic criticism of Administration policy at a crucial new stage in superpower maneuvering.

A day earlier, House Majority Leader Richard A. Gephardt (D-Mo.) accused Bush of “beating plowshares into swords,” while Nunn’s House counterpart, Rep. Les Aspin (D-Wis.), called on the President to allow his arms-control positions to conform to “the new reality.”

The attacks presage major battles in Congress this year over reshaping the nation’s military and forging a new U.S.-Soviet relationship.

Nunn criticized a Bush trip this week in which the President viewed war games between U.S. and “Soviet” forces in Barstow, Calif., checked on “Star Wars” missile-defense research in Livermore, Calif., and took a look at Strategic Air Command operations in Omaha.

“This high-visibility-type trip to places where they’re actually having war games--with all the developments in Eastern Europe, with all the testimony we’ve had about reduced threat--is just out of sync,” he said. “It just doesn’t fit in with world events.”

Likewise, the senator assailed the President’s stance in talks with the Soviets on a Strategic Arms Reduction Treaty.

“I believe if President Bush does not change our present START position . . . then we’re going to have deep, deep trouble on the strategic programs in the Congress this year,” he said.

Nunn estimated that the MX and Midgetman programs have only a 50-50 chance of survival in the current situation--especially with Congress looking to trim up to $15 billion from the Bush Administration’s $303.3-billion defense request for 1991.

However, the senator said, he will take steps to try to avoid such a drastic outcome. If Bush fails to make changes soon, Nunn will press Congress to legislate a new START position on its own, which would at least temporarily preserve both the MX and Midgetman.

“That’s not the best way to do business,” he conceded. “When people say Congress shouldn’t be legislating arms control, I generally agree with that.”

What if Bush continues to stand firm on START and Nunn is unable to push his own proposal through Congress? Then, Nunn predicted, both the $6-billion MX and $30-billion Midgetman programs could be threatened.

“I don’t know which one will get killed or whether possibly both of them,” he said.

Under Nunn’s START plan, the United States would trade away the MX and develop the Midgetman--a course believed to be privately supported by Bush’s national security adviser, Brent Scowcroft. However, Scowcroft is in an uphill fight with Defense and State department officials on that issue, Nunn said.

The senator suggested that the State Department is pressuring Bush to stick with his START position so that he and Soviet President Mikhail S. Gorbachev can sign an agreement at a summit meeting in June.

“If it takes us six more months to negotiate START, my goodness, with all the world events, the two leaders have plenty to talk about without START,” Nunn declared. “Let’s get a good agreement.”

Nunn said he wants Bush to propose to the Soviets that both sides agree to scrap all land-based missiles armed with multiple warheads within 10 years.

As a first step, the Soviets would dispense with their rail-mobile SS-24s and the United States would drop plans to take its MXs out of silos and put them on rail cars.

Also, the United States would gradually replace the MXs it has in silos with single-warhead Midgetman missiles. Later, the United States could transfer the Midgetman onto trucks if its submarine-launched missiles ran into problems. Meanwhile, the Soviets could continue deploying their truck-mounted, single-warhead SS-25.

Nunn argued that his plan would be more stabilizing than Bush’s, reducing the vulnerability of each side’s missiles and, therefore, lessening the temptation to launch a preemptive strike.

If Bush adopted the Nunn plan, the senator predicted that “Congress would go along with some kind of contingency funding of the MX rail mobile until the Soviets agreed to make the trade” on the SS-24.

In fact, Nunn added, he would favor granting all $2.8 billion that Bush requested for the MX in fiscal 1991. “Then I would have a private conversation with him and say, ‘Mr. President, tell them over in the Pentagon not to spend it very quickly.’ Then we make a deal” with the Soviets, disposing of both the MX and SS-24. “Then you’ve got a concept that makes sense,” Nunn said.

Major reductions in land-based missiles, the senator added, would increase the need for the radar-evading, deep-penetrating B-2 bomber developed by Northrop Corp. in California. But while Nunn said he still strongly supports the program, he predicted that production would be limited to “substantially less” than the 132 projected.

Asked about indications that Rep. Aspin would support funding only 17 more B-2s beyond the 13 in the pipeline, Nunn said: “That’s pretty low from my point of view. . . . It depends on their cost. . . . If the B-2 is going to be funded by the Congress, the Air Force is going to have to get the price tag down.”

Proposed START rules for counting nuclear warheads favor bombers, he noted, so the question is what kind of bomber force the United States will have. He said the existing B-1, which he opposed, needs expensive refurbishing to improve its performance. Also, production lines for tankers to refuel the B-1 would have to be restarted if the B-2 is canceled, he said.

“You’re going to get a lot less capable B-1 than you would have B-2 at about the same cost,” Nunn argued.

The senator supported Bush’s latest proposal for reducing U.S. and Soviet troop levels in Europe. That called for each side to come down to 195,000 in Central Europe, with the United States permitted to keep an additional 30,000 in other parts of the continent.