Clinton Assails Panel but OKs Base Closings : Military: He angrily accuses the bipartisan commission of politicizing the process, citing injury to the economies of California and Texas.

President Clinton accepted recommendations Thursday to close 79 military bases and scale back 26 others but not before angrily denouncing the commission that drafted the plan for inflicting politically motivated wounds to the economies of California and Texas.

In a podium-pounding outburst, Clinton accused the bipartisan panel of a “calculated, deliberate attempt to make this a political thing,” especially in eliminating two big maintenance depots, McClellan Air Force Base near Sacramento and Kelly Air Force Base in San Antonio. “This is an outrage,” he said.

Yet hours later, Clinton said that he had accepted the recommendations. His spokesman explained that Clinton’s action represented an endorsement of the base-closing process--the use of an independent commission to make the politically painful choices of which bases to close during a period of military austerity.

“He had no choice but to proceed with a pattern of closures that would meet the goals that we need both for our national security and our budget priorities,” said Mike McCurry, White House press secretary.

Clinton also approved a plan aimed at preserving some 4,300 jobs at McClellan by turning tasks now done by the Air Force over to private industry. But defense analysts predicted that the effort could fall far short of its goal.

The list of bases to be closed or realigned now goes to Congress, which has 45 days to pass legislation rejecting it or let it take effect. An effort in the House led by Rep. Vic Fazio (D-West Sacramento) to throw out the list is given little chance of passing.

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Since the Base Closure and Realignment Commission deposited its findings on his doorstep two weeks ago, Clinton has struggled to find a way to minimize blows to California that could jeopardize his chance of carrying the nation’s largest state in his reelection bid next year.

Five California bases were on the list of those to be closed: McClellan Air Force Base, the separate defense distribution depot at McClellan, the Long Beach Naval Shipyard, the Oakland Army Base and the Ontario Air Guard Station. Altogether, by commission estimates, California would lose 19,372 jobs at the bases and another 22,900 jobs at concerns that depend on the military work force.

Nationwide, the base closures would claim 43,742 direct jobs and 49,823 indirect jobs. The Defense Department has argued that only cutbacks of this magnitude will allow the nation to modernize its weapons during a time of declining defense budgets.

The Administration’s plan for McClellan is aimed at maintaining as many jobs as possible by gradually shifting aircraft maintenance and repair work to private employers.

By October of 1997, the Air Force will reduce its military and civilian work force from the current level of 11,000 to 8,700. Eight hundred of the jobs will be transferred to the Tobyhanna Army Depot in Pennsylvania.

After 2001, no military employees would remain but officials hope that half of them--about 4,300 workers--would be employed by private companies maintaining Air Force planes or doing work in other fields.

During the transition, the Pentagon will offer a full array of consulting services to help attract private companies to take on some of the work that is being done at McClellan.

At the same time, federal officials will search for other ways to use the base, through the sale of assets or other redevelopment projects. The government will try to boost the redevelopment by setting up task forces, awarding economic development planning grants and accelerating procedures for required environmental cleanup.

Five of the base-closing commission’s members were named by Clinton and four by Republican congressional leaders. Its chairman is a Democrat, former Illinois Sen. Alan J. Dixon.

Clinton accused the panel of playing a devious political game.

“There has been a calculated, deliberate attempt to turn this into a political thing and to obscure the real economic impact of their recommendations in San Antonio and California, which were made solely so they could put back a lot of other things,” Clinton said. Moments later, he said he wasn’t “imputing any motive” to the group.

He accused the panel of overlooking economic impact in its decisions, even though, he said, the law requires it to give weight to that factor. And he noted that the commission had made “far more changes” in the Pentagon’s initial recommendations than any of the three previous panels.

Specifically, he quarreled with the commission’s decision to remove 23 bases from the Pentagon’s list of those that should be closed or realigned and to add nine bases, including McClellan and two others in California.

The reaction from the state’s two Democratic senators was swift and sharp.

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“I am deeply saddened that the President has decided to accept the base-closing commission’s list,” Sen. Barbara Boxer said. “[But] I know that the President was placed in a very painful position by a commission that I think was a rogue commission. They ignored national security and cumulative economic impact. I think the President would have been on solid ground to reject the report.”

Likewise, Sen. Dianne Feinstein said that she viewed the decision “with great disappointment.”

“I was hopeful the President might take action to prevent this from happening,” Feinstein said at a Senate press conference. “You do what you can but in this case the cards were so stacked against us.”

Pressed to assess the political damage the decision would have on Clinton’s reelection chances in the nation’s most populous state, Feinstein chose her words carefully.

“As one who has run three times statewide, [I know] it is not an easy state for a Democrat to run in,” she said. “Statewide elections come down to basically six or eight [percentage] points, and much revolves around people who lose these jobs.”

Neither senator plans to press for a resolution to throw out the commission’s list. Feinstein said that she had found very little support for such an effort.

But Fazio, whose district includes McClellan, immediately introduced a resolution to reject the commission’s findings.

“I don’t want anyone to be fooled,” he said. “I don’t believe there’s much chance, just as there has never been in the previous three rounds, that the resolution will be adopted by the Congress.”

Gov. Pete Wilson, running for the Republican presidential nomination and critical all along of plans to close more state bases, blasted Clinton for an action that would imperil the nation’s defenses.

“These closure [decisions] have cut into the muscle of America’s military readiness, inviting miscalculation by the next Saddam Hussein, thereby placing American lives at risk and undermining 12 years of hard-won credibility in foreign policy that was regained during the Reagan and Bush years,” Wilson said.

Tom Eres, head of a Sacramento Chamber of Commerce task force that has been trying to save McClellan, said that the fight would shift to winning business at the base for private industry.

Long Beach Mayor Beverly O’Neill said that she was disappointed and surprised at the decision to close the Long Beach Naval Shipyard. “I really thought the President would give the cumulative impact [in California] some great consideration and he’d send the recommendation back,” O’Neill said, “but in the long run there must have been stronger considerations--I can’t imagine what.”

Closing the Long Beach shipyard, which does maintenance on large-hulled, non-nuclear vessels, would cost Southern California 3,100 civilian and military jobs.

Times staff writers Max Vanzi in Sacramento and Edmund Newton in Los Angeles contributed to this story.

* OUTCOME UNCERTAIN: Analysts say there is no guarantee that Clinton’s “privatization” plan will save jobs. A3