Battle Behind Closed Doors : State’s elected officials must prepare for new debate on base closings

The recent Times’ story, “Air Battle Won Behind Closed Doors,” carried an important dual meaning. Sure, reporter Jack Cheevers’ account of the Benefield Anechoic Facility at Edwards Air Force Base was about a place where U.S. military aircraft can be tested for effectiveness without ever leaving the ground. But it also set the stage for a different battle, behind closed doors at the Pentagon and on Capitol Hill.

We have already covered the fact that Edwards not only fared well in the most recent round of military base closings, but has expanded. The $200-million upgrade for the Benefield Anechoic Facility, a “sterile” electronic test environment that is the largest of its kind in the world, is another case in point. But it is also true that a new debate on base closings is scheduled for next year, and that the commission in charge of these discussions is expected to take a hard look at such test installations as Edwards AFB.

Few other bases around the nation are so specialized that direct competitors are immediately known. Edwards has the advantage of being that specialized, a point that should not be lost on the elected officials in Sacramento and Washington who are most concerned about its future. Its competitor figures to be the Patuxent River Naval Air Station in Maryland.

Pax River has been the site of electromagnetic pulse tests designed to simulate the effects of a nuclear blast. Like Edwards, it has a test pilot school. Among its most distinguished (and influential) alumni is former astronaut and U.S. Sen. John H. Glenn Jr. (D-Ohio), chairman of the Senate Military Readiness and Defense Infrastructure committee. He’ll be in office through 1998.

When a Pentagon-hired consultant suggested consolidating the military’s electronic warfare testing at the Benefield facility at Edwards, and not at Pax River, its Maryland boosters forced a new study that came out against the consolidation. That’s the kind of tug of war that will only escalate in 1995 and beyond, and that elected officials in our region, and in California as a whole, must be prepared for.