Senate Seeks to Shoot Down Missile Deal : Defense: The 93-4 vote is aimed at blocking the purchase of LTV Corp.’s aerospace division by a company owned by the French government. National security is cited.

The Senate voted overwhelmingly Thursday to oppose the sale of LTV Corp.’s missile division to a company controlled by the French government after opponents said it would harm U.S. security.

The Senate vote of 93 to 4 was aimed at putting pressure on the Bush Administration to halt the attempt by Thomson-CSF to purchase the missile manufacturer.

A federal bankruptcy court has approved the $450-million sale to Thomson-CSF, the U.S. subsidiary of Thomson, a company that is 58% owned by the French government.

The Senate acted shortly after the House approved a $252-billion defense appropriations bill containing a provision banning the sale outright. That bill must still be approved by the Senate.

“Such a sale poses a significant risk to the security of highly sensitive weapons technology and could fundamentally damage the U.S. defense industrial base,” Sen. Robert Byrd (D-W.Va.) told the Senate.

The deal has come under increasing criticism in Congress as it is reviewed by the government’s Committee on Foreign Investment in the United States. President Bush must make a decision on the issue by July 20.

Byrd said passage of his resolution--attached as an amendment to a Russian aid bill--would put the Senate’s opposition on record as the Administration considered the issue.

He said it would give Congress the option of retaining the ban contained in the defense appropriations bill if needed.

Thomson-CSF is the world’s second-biggest defense electronics company after GM Hughes Electronics Corp.

Thomson executives have denied that the sale would put American defense secrets at risk because U.S. missiles would be made entirely by the French company’s American subsidiary.

Dallas-based LTV, which has been operating under Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection since 1986, has sought to sell the aerospace division under a reorganization plan that would leave it with its core steel business.

Byrd said that although the President could go through the Committee on Foreign Investment in the United States to block sales on the grounds that it would impair national security, the Administration has blocked only one of 700 sales reviewed in nearly four years.

“Given the history of the CFIUS process, I am not encouraged and I am not prepared to wait idly while the deal is consummated and the French government nationalizes the American defense industry,” Byrd said.