Pentagon Critic Gains Top Rank on Military Panel

Rep. Ronald V. Dellums (D-Berkeley) on Wednesday became the chairman of the House Armed Services Committee and solemnly pledged to remain true to his outspoken and critical views of the military.

Dellums is the first black to serve as armed services chairman and continues a 22-year odyssey that has brought him from radical freshman to member of the House Establishment.

“I came here as an advocate of peace and I am going to continue to do so. I’ll continue to raise my voice on a full range of political issues,” Dellums, 57, said at an afternoon news conference after House Democrats voted 198 to 10 to elevate him to lead the House panel.

“What this vote is saying is that . . . one can faithfully represent the hopes and dreams and aspirations of their constituency and also maintain the integrity of functioning in this institution. That does not have to be a conflict,” he said.

Dellums, known as a leading opponent of foreign military intervention, the B-2 bomber and the Strategic Defense Initiative, said he would favor a faster reduction of the armed forces and billions more for economic conversion.

The $1.5 billion allocated for switching defense industries to civilian needs last year was only a “drop in the bucket,” he said, suggesting that the amount may be tripled in the new Pentagon budget.

Dellums, a former Marine who has earned a reputation as a fair and even-handed committee leader, declared that he intends to use his more visible role to expound his liberal ideas.

“I only want a chance to advocate--I don’t always expect to win,” he said.

Dellums said he would seek a consensus on defense spending rather than try to get his own way through the powers of the post.

“You have to be willing to lose as Rep. (Dellums) in order to win as chair,” he said, explaining his dual roles in the House.

Even Republicans who have fought him on issues ranging from the B-2 bomber to the Gulf War have praise for him.

Rep. Robert K. Dornan (R-Garden Grove), who opposes Dellums on almost every military issue, praised him Wednesday as “gentlemanly and fair.”

Dellums moved up to the chairmanship formerly held by Rep. Les Aspin (D-Wis.), who resigned to be President Clinton’s secretary of defense.

Dellums, who has a “Peace Is Patriotic” banner hanging in his congressional office, said he was more persuaded than ever that diplomacy is the best way to resolve international disputes.

“The use of military force is always a regrettable choice and it must be a last resort,” he said.

Dellums said the chairmanship would give him access to the President and to the secretary of defense to press the views that he has advocated consistently since he came to Congress 22 years ago as an outspoken opponent of the war in Vietnam.

“I have a bully pulpit--I intend to use it,” he said. But he said he would give his advice directly to Clinton on military issues rather than communicate through the media.

Rep. Patricia Schroeder (D-Colo.) recalled that the late Rep. F. Edward Hebert (D-La.), who was chairman of the House Armed Services Committee when she and Dellums were named to the panel, opposed their appointment and gave them only one chair to sit on.

“Eddie Hebert must be spinning in his grave,” Schroeder said with a laugh at the committee’s organizational meeting.