Pentagon to Trim National Guard, Reserve : Defense: White House OKs plan to cut more than 120,000 troops over five years. The move will shuffle duties of both organizations.

The Clinton Administration said Friday it will go ahead with a two-year-old proposal to trim the size of the Army National Guard and the Army Reserve by more than 120,000 soldiers, but will stretch the reduction out over the next five years to help ease the pain.

The plan, outlined by Defense Secretary Les Aspin, was part of a carefully negotiated settlement designed to dampen the longstanding rivalry between the regular Army and the politically powerful Guard and Reserve, which have blocked previous cuts with the help of allies in Congress.

The new schedule, revising one set earlier by the George Bush Administration, would trim the Guard and Reserve from 702,000 troops to 575,000 by 1999. Bush had proposed cutting the two components to 563,000 by next October.

In addition, the Pentagon said it plans to shift about 10,000 slots between the Guard and the Reserve to help define the roles of both organizations more clearly, especially the Guard’s role as a supplier of replacement troops for regular Army combat forces.

It will also move approximately 4,400 aviation slots from the Reserve to the Guard.

Pentagon officials said they would not have details before early January on which Guard or Reserve units might be affected, but they said it was unlikely that Friday’s announcement would require any sweeping new cutbacks beyond those already being planned.

Gen. J. H. Binford Peay III, the Army’s vice chief of staff, said there will be “some initial short-term turbulence” while the changes are being put into effect, but he predicted that ultimately the plan would work smoothly.

Officials insisted that both the transfers and the reductions would be carried out with a view toward preserving “a broad geographic distribution” of Guard and Reserve units, and they pledged that the Pentagon would provide transition benefits to those who leave.

The Pentagon also promised to modernize Guard units by financing the training and equipping of 15 “enhanced readiness” brigades--linked to specific active-duty Army units--that can be ready to reinforce them within 90 days after the outbreak of a war.

Even so, the 54-member California congressional delegation said it had written Maj. Gen. John R. D’Araujo Jr., director of the Army National Guard, asking that the Pentagon take the state’s already hard-hit economy into account before making any cuts.

The proposal, the result of 2 1/2 years of bargaining, would shuffle some elements of the Guard and Reserve in line with their long-term missions, and would guarantee the Guard a long-term role in providing replacement combat forces in a war.

In return, the Administration has agreed to slow the shrinkage of the Guard and Reserve from the pace advocated by the Bush Administration, and to cut the Reserve more sharply than the Guard.

Aspin, who announced the new plan at a press conference studded with representatives of the Guard and Reserve and their lobbying groups, said he hoped the agreement would “bring much-needed stability” to the effort so the Pentagon could go ahead as planned.

The Pentagon has been trying to reduce the size of the Guard for years but has been consistently stymied by Congress. The Guard, which has armories in all but the smallest population centers--and whose membership often includes key local officials--has a formidable political lobby.

Leaders of key lobbying groups, including the National Guard Assn. of the United States and the Reserve Officers Assn., endorsed the new proposal and pledged to support the plan in Congress.

Congressional reaction appeared to be positive. Rep. G. V. (Sonny) Montgomery (D-Miss.), chairman of the House Armed Services subcommittee on the Guard and Reserve, praised the plan as fair.

“I would prefer no cuts at all, but we don’t have that choice,” Montgomery said in a statement. “The bottom line for the National Guard and Reserve is that the cuts could have been much deeper,” he said.

Sen. Sam Nunn (D-Ga.), chairman of the Senate Armed Services Committee, was noncommittal, but he promised a “careful review” of the plan early next year.

Taken as a whole, the Administration’s proposal was regarded as a clear victory for the Guard, which for years has been battling efforts by the regular Army to take over its role in providing replacements for front-line combat troops.

During the 1991 Persian Gulf War, the Army complained loudly that Guard units sent to Saudi Arabia were ill-prepared for combat and did not have sufficient training to be useful on the battlefront.

Friday’s proposal will sharpen the mission of the Guard as the major source of replacements for active-duty combat forces while allowing state Guard units to continue providing disaster-relief and riot-control in their capacity as state militias.

At the same time, the Reserve will be limited primarily to providing combat support and service support units--such as medical, transportation, communications and military police--for regular Army units during time of conflicts.

Aspin and other officials said the changes would be consistent with the Pentagon’s recently completed “bottom-up review,” which calls for reducing active-duty forces from 1.7 million troops to 1.4 million troops over the next five years.