Hard Test Lies Ahead for Cheney

During the tense early hours of the failed December coup attempt against Philippine President Corazon Aquino, a call came into the Pentagon that still grates on Defense Secretary Dick Cheney.

Rep. Stephen J. Solarz (D-N.Y.), chairman of the House Foreign Affairs subcommittee on Asia, wanted to know if an Air Force plane could fly him to Manila so that he could monitor the still-unfolding coup and offer the Administration his unsolicited advice.

The request was denied because Philippine airfields were closed. But it reinforced Cheney’s longstanding belief that members of Congress have seriously overstepped their bounds and begun to trespass on executive authority.

Cheney, who just a year ago was the second-ranking Republican in the House of Representatives, today has more than one problem with Congress. And they will test his talent for both confrontation and compromise.

Because of his intimate knowledge of Congress and his gracious but cold-eyed negotiating style, Cheney may be the ideal figure to represent the Administration in what is likely to be the most difficult series of clashes on military policy in decades.

Lawmakers are whetting their knives to slash his $295-billion Pentagon budget request. They are preparing to reject his list of proposed military base closures. And, perhaps most galling of all to the former Wyoming representative, Solarz and other congressmen are increasingly injecting themselves into U.S. military operations.

“They’ve got a major role to play in helping set broad, overall national policy and raising the forces that the President has at his disposal,” Cheney said in an interview. “But when it comes to day-to-day operations, when it comes to the decision to use force. . . . Congress ought to stay the hell out of it.”

Cheney’s comments were made in his trademark style, without histrionics but in firm and unambiguous language. A longtime friend once described him as the sort of parent who could discipline his children by the sheer force of his personality, without even raising his voice.

Cheney sends mixed signals to Congress. In small meetings, he is charming, warm, even occasionally funny, lawmakers and Cheney aides say. But in public statements, he often assumes a lecturing, almost condescending tone.

Presenting his budget to reporters, Cheney lambasted his Democratic critics in Congress as irresponsible grandstanders who have “never seen a defense program they liked” and who are looking to cut the military budget so that they can lard the home-district pork barrel with domestic programs.

Yet “nobody on Capitol Hill has volunteered a single dollar in defense spending that they’d like to see cut out of their district,” Cheney complained.

In the interview, he griped that in the midst of the Panama invasion in December, numerous lawmakers called the Pentagon’s National Military Command Center and the U.S. Southern Command Headquarters in Panama to demand information and volunteer their views on how to conduct the war.

“Ongoing military operations ought to be left to the executive,” he said icily. “There isn’t any way members of Congress can contribute in that regard.”

Cheney, 49, comes to his beliefs about the roles of Congress and the executive branch from high-level experience in each. He was White House chief of staff under Gerald R. Ford in 1975-1976--at 34 the youngest man ever to hold that post--and then was elected to Wyoming’s lone House seat in 1980, rising to assistant minority leader in 1988.

He won the loyalty of his GOP colleagues by his fierce partisanship on behalf of the Ronald Reagan Administration during the Iran-Contra hearings, when he was ranking Republican on the House Investigating Committee.

Cheney’s standing with his colleagues was enhanced with the 1983 publication of a book about Congress that he co-wrote with his wife, Lynne V. Cheney, now director of the National Endowment for the Humanities.

The book, “Kings of the Hill,” was a series of biographies of powerful past speakers of the House of Representative, a study of how to wield power in Congress. Five years later, he became the No. 2 Republican in the House, and he admitted that before becoming defense secretary, he had hoped to become No. 1.

Cheney holds bachelor’s and master’s degrees in political science from the University of Wyoming. He began, but did not complete, work on a doctorate at the University of Wisconsin. He worked briefly on Capitol Hill as a congressional fellow, then served in a number of low-level posts in the Richard M. Nixon Administration.

Despite his blunt tongue and his unwavering conservatism on national security matters, Cheney still wins plaudits from Capitol Hill, even from Democrats.

“The secretary of defense is a man of great integrity and personal dedication to the defense of our country. He is a highly intelligent and a very reasonable and fine man,” said Rep. Charles E. Bennett (D-Fla.), a senior member of the House Armed Services Committee and a member of Congress’ old school of Southern gentlemen.

An aide to an influential Democratic congressman said Cheney enjoys “excellent relations with Congress. Everyone loves him up here.” He discounted Cheney’s attacks on Congress for meddling in executive branch decisions as nothing more than “the standard Republican line.”

“He does understand what drives this institution,” the congressional aide said. “The best example was when he testified on the budget last year. We used to get (former Defense Secretary Caspar W.) Weinberger up here saying this is the God-given truth, don’t touch it or everything falls apart.

“Cheney comes up and says this is the best recommendation I can come up with. He doesn’t try to cast it in biblical terms as something carved in stone.”

But Cheney’s policies are not as popular as his persona. Bennett criticized his $295-billion 1991 Pentagon budget as bloated with what he termed overpriced and unneeded strategic weapons such as the MX and Midgetman nuclear missiles, “Star Wars” and the B-2 bomber.

“It doesn’t take a genius to see that that’s a mistake,” Bennett said. “I just regret that realism hasn’t caught on with him.”

The Democratic congressional aide said Cheney faces the toughest sledding of any Pentagon chief in memory in trying to sell what appears to many to be a Cold War budget in a post-Cold War era.

“He’s got to make more sense out of the budget in the coming year if he’s going to keep control of it,” the aide said.

Lawrence J. Korb, a former assistant secretary of defense, agreed that Cheney’s hand in Congress has been weakened by a slow start in drawing up a strategy to justify his 1991 budget, which calls for 2.6% less than the Pentagon would need to keep up with inflation. Korb said that Cheney was handicapped by entering office in mid-March of last year after the rejection of John Tower for the Pentagon job.

But Korb said that Cheney hurt himself by his tardy reaction to events in Eastern Europe and the Soviet Union. The former official said the 1991 budget appears to have been little affected by the cataclysmic changes in the East and the diminishing military threat to the United States.

“He’s not moving quickly enough to get on top of events,” Korb said.

A senior Administration official agreed: “The Pentagon is having policy discussions now they should have had six months ago. Cheney is moving into a congressional environment full of sharpened knives.”

Korb and several other observers noted that Cheney’s Pentagon staff does not include any celebrated strategic theorists. The Defense Department’s policy shop is run by Paul D. Wolfowitz, a respected foreign policy professional who has specialized in Asia and the Third World--but not in European and U.S.-Soviet issues. Cheney’s principal adviser on East-West questions is Stephen J. Hadley, a little-known lawyer.

On the other hand, outsiders give high marks to Henry Rowen, a career intelligence and foreign policy official, who serves as Cheney’s assistant secretary in charge of non-superpower issues.

Many Cheney critics inside and outside the Pentagon contend that too much policy is made by a small circle of Cheney intimates who previously served on his congressional staff. The close Cheney aides are an able and hard-working bunch, most observers say, but they have little experience in strategic policy or the arcane world of military budgets, procurement and operations.

“He’s got this little cabal in the front office now,” one longtime Pentagon civilian official said. “I hear a lot of complaints that you can’t break through that.”

One ranking military officer said he found Cheney’s operating style unsettling because there is little give-and-take in meetings.

“We get mixed results from the secretary’s office,” this officer said. “Sometimes we plead our case and win. Other times, we get the sense, ‘Don’t confuse us with the facts because our minds are made up.’ ”

Said another Pentagon official who has observed Cheney at close range: “For all his amiability, if you look hard there’s a pretty cold-blooded man.”

Senior military officers may be reluctant to argue vigorously before Cheney because of the way he dressed down the Air Force chief of staff, Gen. Larry D. Welch, less than a month after becoming defense secretary. Cheney publicly excoriated the four-star general for “free-lancing” on Capitol Hill by proposing an unauthorized Air Force plan to build two land-based missiles.

Cheney aides later acknowledged that the move was a deliberate effort to show that the civilians had regained control at the Pentagon after the seven-year Weinberger regime, when the military services enjoyed broad autonomy.

In a recent interview, Cheney complained that the budget and policy debates among the military chiefs and the service secretaries that he presides over are too tame.

“You really have to work at it to get a good discussion, where people will come in and argue for their point of view,” he said.

The defense chief won’t have that problem as he tries to sell his budget on Capitol Hill over the coming months. Lawmakers have already blasted him for proposing a “head-in-the-sand budget” that doesn’t reflect a changing world and for using a list of proposed base closures as a political bludgeon against Democrats.

“Congress always zeroes in on a few issues, and those are the ones we fight about,” Cheney observed recently. “In reality, if you go back and look over the last several years--most of the time, most of the budgets submitted by the President--most get approved by the Congress. I think that will happen again, although we’re clearly going to have significant controversy.”

Still, Cheney isn’t complaining.

“I can’t think of a more interesting or exciting position to have, given the times in which we live,” he said. “It’s damned interesting work.”

DEFENSE BUDGET GOES TO CONGRESS

Defense Secretary Dick Cheney’s proposed fiscal 1991 budget is only the beginning. In the months ahead, Congress will tear the budget apart and put it back together to its own liking. First the House and Senate Armed Services committees will prepare legislation to authorize next year’s military programs; then the defense subcommittees of the Appropriations committees will prepare bills that will actually permit the Defense Department to spend the necessary funds. Here are the chairmen of those four key panels:

REP. JOHN P. MURTHA (D-Pa.), chairman, House Appropriations defense subcommittee.

57-year-old car-wash operator, Marine Corps Reserve colonel. . . . Fought in Korea, Vietnam. . . . Awarded Bronze Star, two Purple Hearts in Vietnam.

Elected to House in 1974 from a blue-collar, economically depressed coal and steel area around Johnstown. . . . Unopposed in reelection to eighth term in 1988.

More hawkish on defense than most House Democrats. . . . Old-fashioned pol who wields influence in back rooms, avoids media spotlight. . . . Hopes for high leadership post were dashed by 1980 brush with Abscam scandal; videotapes showed him rejecting money for self, promoting it for two colleagues. . . . Has amassed political IOUs pushing pay, benefit hikes for lawmakers.

As much interested in defense pork as policy, he opposes Bush attempt to cancel V-22 Osprey aircraft being developed for Marines in Pennsylvania. . . . Also is fighting Pentagon plan to close Philadelphia Naval Shipyard. . . . May seek deeper troop cuts in Europe than proposed by Bush. . . . Like fellow vet Daniel K. Inouye (D-Hawaii), he wants increased funding for military personnel benefits.

SEN. SAM NUNN (D-Ga.), chairman, Senate Armed Services Committee.

51-year-old attorney, farmer, former Coast Guard seaman. . . . Regarded as the most influential member of Congress on military matters. . . .

Elected to the Senate with only 54% of vote in 1972. . . . Reelected twice with more than 80%. . . . Has considered running for President but may be too conservative to gain nomination.

Scholarly, deliberate, stern (though dryly witty), he has built a reputation for nonpartisan mastery of national security issues. . . . Image was tarnished last year when Republicans accused him of “Nunn-partisan” torpedoing of the nomination of John Tower to be secretary of defense.

Believes the President’s defense budget inadequately reflects changes in Eastern Europe. . . . Proposes that the United States supply mostly air power in Western Europe. . . . Advocates reviving bipartisan commission to review new base-closing list proposed by Defense Secretary Dick Cheney. . . . Suggests that more foreign bases need to be on the list. . . . Wants Congress to choose between the mobile MX and the smaller Midgetman, two nuclear missile systems sought by Bush.

SEN. DANIEL K. INOUYE (D-Hawaii), chairman, Senate Appropriations defense subcommittee.

65-year-old lawyer. . . . Lost his right arm in World War II, serving with the all-Japanese-American 442nd Infantry Regimental Combat Team in Europe.

Elected to the Senate in 1962 after spending four years in the House. . . . Reelected to fifth term in 1986 with 74% of vote.

Took over Senate Defense Appropriations panel last year. . . . Like his House counterpart, Rep. John P. Murtha (D-Pa.), he is a behind-the-scenes operator who shies from the limelight. . . . Generally liberal but not regarded as partisan. . . . Won esteem on 1973 Senate Watergate Committee but shone less as head of Iran-Contra inquiry in 1987. . . . Lost bid for Senate majority leader in 1988.

Seeks “several-hundred-million-dollar” increase over Bush request for medical support staff and other military health programs. . . . Without stating his own preferences, he says Congress cannot fund all strategic programs sought by Bush, including “Star Wars,” MX and Midgetman missiles, Trident submarine, B-2 Stealth bomber. . . . Seeks to assure planned transfer of battleship Missouri from Long Beach to Hawaii.

REP. LES ASPIN (D-Wis.), chairman, House Armed Services Committee.

51-year-old former economics professor trained at Yale, Oxford, MIT. . . . An Army captain, was a systems analyst under Defense Secretary Robert S. McNamara and an adviser in Vietnam.

Elected to the House from an industrialized, southeast Wisconsin district in 1970. . . . Reelected to 10th two-year term in 1988 with 76% of vote.

Has worked with his Senate counterpart Sam Nunn (D-Ga.) to pass consensus defense bills and nudge the Democratic Party to political center. . . . Though gregarious, he is an intellectual loner more comfortable with outside defense theorists than House colleagues. . . . Criticized by Democrats for private deal-making--especially in helping Presidents Reagan and Bush to salvage MX missile.

Calls Bush defense budget timid in responding to reduced Soviet threat in Europe. . . . Suggests deep cuts in “Star Wars” anti-missile program, B-2 Stealth bomber. . . . Agrees with Nunn that it is hard to fund both MX and Midgetman. . . . Proposes bipartisan commission on base closings sought by Bush. . . . Favors finishing research on some new weapons but shelving production unless Soviet threat revives.