COLUMN LEFT : Ike Was Absolutely On Target : Unless we rein in bloated military spending, we’ll drown in red ink.

This month marks the centennial of Dwight D. Eisenhower’s birth and at this moment in history, America sorely misses the courage and common sense of this remarkable soldier and statesman: the supreme allied commander who led us to victory in World War II, the U.S. President who called for a “total war upon the brute forces of poverty”--a war whose victory would bring the benefits of better “roads and schools, hospitals and homes, food and health.”

Today’s softheaded hard-liners urge us to keep throwing money at the Pentagon’s attempts to snow the American people with slogans like “peace through strength.” Ike, the quintessential hard-headed soft-liner, taught us to value strength through peace: “There is no way in which a country can satisfy the craving for absolute security--but it can bankrupt itself, morally and economically, in attempting to reach that illusory goal through arms alone. The military Establishment, not productive of itself, necessarily must feed on the energy, productivity and brain power of the country, and if it takes too much, our total strength declines.”

Americans are at a point in our history that makes these words of wisdom relevant. We are confronted by a fateful choice: Will our preeminent national priorities be slanted toward the Pentagon or the people? To be specific, will billions of dollars continue to be spent on nonsense, such as the so-called Stealth bomber or the pie-in-the-sky fantasy called Star Wars? Shall we keep on putting our money where our myths are, simply because of the political power of the military-industrial complex that Eisenhower warned us about? The Pentagon’s wish list or the people’s genuine needs?

As we consider and debate the profound implications of the question, we must keep in mind this fact: During Ronald Reagan’s first four years in office, military spending doubled, reaching nearly $300 million a year. As David Stockman, Reagan’s director of management and budget, said at the time: “They were squealing with delight” (“they” being the military-industrial complex).

When we add this scandalous figure to the military-related corruption of recent years, it becomes evident that in the last nine years American taxpayers have paid hundreds of billions of dollars more than necessary for any reasonable definition of national security.

Earlier this year, Adm. William Crowe, recently retired chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, said, “The threat of a surprise attack on Western Europe is gone.” In a more general sense there is widespread acceptance of the fact that the Cold War has finally ended. So when do we get a clear-cut national-security scenario that reflects new realities rather than one that looks at the world through a rear-view mirror?

In the 1980s, American adults behaved like children beguiled by a Pied Piper named Reagan, who led us to assume that budget deficits do not matter. But now we know that they do and that every dollar counts. Consistent with that awareness, we must demand that our “leaders” justify spending many billions of dollars on a bomber without a purpose, the B-2 Stealth (whose name implies, as its only possible target, raids on our national Treasury).

We have been given no reasonable rationale for this astronomically priced Edsel, no description of a mission that fits the new world around us. Although beset by severe malfunctions and interminable delays, our government continues to pour good money after bad. This, despite the added fact that cost overruns remain concealed, as do the terms of the Air Force’s contract with Northrop. Talk about stealth!

Star Wars and Stealth bombers are but the tip of a gargantuan iceberg. The totality drains the lifeblood out of our economic body politic.

Like all realistic Americans, I understand the importance of national security and I support an adequate military component. The point here is to stress the failure of our government to redefine national security in ways that reflect new realities rather than old myths--and to remind our fellow citizens that, in the words of Dwight Eisenhower’s January, 1960, farewell address: “We must guard against the acquisition of unwarranted influence, whether sought or unsought, by the military-industrial complex.”