B-2 Backers Urge White House to Save Embattled Plane : Defense: Critics say that unless Bush enters the political fray soon, the bomber will not survive the upcoming House and Senate budget debates.

As congressional debate on defense spending has shifted into high gear, lawmakers who support the embattled B-2 Stealth bomber are complaining that White House support for the program has lacked resolve.

Although the Bush Administration seems to have been jolted to some degree by a committee vote Tuesday to terminate production, some supporters warn that it already may be too late to keep the B-2 from crashing during budget battles on the House and Senate floors.

Proponents of the $63-billion program have been pressing the Administration for weeks to push its most powerful advocate--the President--into the political fray in an effort to pluck the program from death at the hands of budget cutters. To their mounting frustration, they continue to get what they consider a tepid response.

“The White House and the secretary of defense have been dragging their heels on explaining the need for the B-2 to the American public,” complained Sen. J. James Exon (D-Neb.), the Senate’s leading proponent of the radar-eluding aircraft. “The President had better spend some political capital on this aircraft or it could be very, very dead--and so stealthy that no one will be able to see it.”

There were some signs of action Wednesday, a day after the House Armed Services Committee dealt the B-2 program its most serious blow yet, adopting a $283-billion 1991 defense bill that would terminate production of the plane.

Defense Secretary Dick Cheney and Brent Scowcroft, Bush’s national security adviser, began inviting senators to the White House to urge them to support the B-2. And White House spokesman Roman Popadiuk suggested that the President will boost the foundering program in a speech today, in which Bush “will address how he perceives the U.S. defense budget and U.S. force structure in meeting the changing demands.”

That description of Bush’s coming speech, however, failed to comfort critics who complain that the White House is dealing with the plane as part of a larger package of defense modernization programs. White House sources add that the Administration believes it is too early for the President to go to the mat for the plane because Congress is at least two months away from completing its debate.

In Southern California, as many as 17,000 jobs are at stake. For the Northrop Corp., the prime contractor of the beleaguered B-2, the termination of the program could bring serious financial trouble, according to industry and Pentagon analysts.

With the Senate floor debate due to start as early as today, the House committee’s vote to kill the B-2 was just the first of many challenges the plane will face.

The Senate Armed Services Committee in mid-July recommended approval of $4.5 billion--the Administration’s full request--to build and test two of the bombers. But in a White House meeting last Monday, the bomber’s most influential Senate advocate, Armed Services Chairman Sam Nunn (D-Ga.), warned that without strong White House intercession, he might not be able to fend off opponents of the program on the Senate floor.

As debate moves to the floors of the House and Senate, the B-2 program is expected to be buffeted by criticism, including some from the Administration’s Republican allies.

During that process, one knowledgeable source said that Vice President Dan Quayle, once a member of the Senate Armed Services Committee, might be sent to Capitol Hill to whip errant Senate Republicans into line on the B-2. So far, however, Quayle remains on the sidelines.

According to Rep. Jerry Lewis (R-Redlands), a staunch B-2 supporter, the Bush Administration decided recently that it must focus its efforts on later stages of the budget-writing process, including the conference between the House and Senate Armed Services committees and the drafting of the defense appropriations bills.

“Those who are already singing at the B-2’s funeral are doing so a little too early,” warned Lewis.

But several lawmakers, speaking privately, called the White House effort faint-hearted, saying that it is likely to be too little, too late.

The Pentagon has reinforced that impression, they said, by being unwilling to single out the B-2 for special treatment. While Cheney has touted the plane in speeches and congressional hearings, Pentagon officials said that he has been careful not to suggest that the B-2 is a non-negotiable priority in the defense budget.

“You have to resist the urge to cut side deals on special projects,” said a senior defense official. “We’re still trying to go for an overall budget,” he added.

If Congress’ final version of the 1991 defense budget leaves out the B-2, will Bush use his most powerful weapon--the legislative veto--to get the funds restored?

Rep. William L. Dickinson (R-Ala.), the ranking Republican on the House Armed Services Committee, predicted Wednesday that Bush would veto the House bill if it came to him in its current form. But other proponents of the revolutionary plane warned that Bush cannot let the situation come to that, because it probably won’t work.

“You can veto offending provisions out of a bill,” said one congressional aide who is key to the fight. “But you really can’t veto something into a bill.”

Some Democratic supporters of the B-2, including Exon, said they suspected that behind the White House’s muted support lies a more intricate strategy: to let Congress kill the bomber program that the Bush Administration itself has concluded is too costly, and then accuse the Democrats in future campaigns of having abandoned the nation’s defenses.

Staff writer David Lauter contributed to this story.