Until Next Time

"We have learned a lot," said Minnesota Democratic Senator Walter Mondale. "We learned how to work together, and they are going to hear more from us in the future." It sounded like postgame, locker-room bitterness. But the stakes were high--the $20 billion defense-appropriations bill for weapons and research--and last week, Mondale and other Defense Department critics were losers as the bill swept the Senate by an 81-5 vote.

For Mondale and his fellow Pentagon hecklers, the zenith came in August when they fought--and nearly won--the debate against Nixon's ABM system, one item in the total defense budget. The Senate vote was 51-50. Though the Administration carried the day, the warning was sounded. The military, henceforth, would not be able to breeze through its requests for appropriations question-free. The lengthy debate that came to an end in the vote last week bore this out. "Just remember," said Oregon Republican Mark Hatfield, "this is a bill that used to slip through the Senate in hours, with no real opposition. This year it took two months."

As usual, the Senator who led the Defense Department's bill to its passage was Mississippi Democrat John Stennis. Stennis' sympathy for the military has never been questioned, but last week it was suggested that he had exacted a price for supporting the Nixon Administration's bill. The word came from Charles Overby, a Washington correspondent for the Jackson, Miss., Daily News, who until last month was an assistant to Stennis. Overby reported that the Senator had sent a letter to the Administration during the August congressional recess. Stennis reportedly wrote that with the upcoming fall desegregation of schools, he thought he should be in Mississippi for a while.

The message to Nixon was clear. If Stennis stayed home, leadership for the military-appropriations bill would fall to Missouri Democrat Stuart Symington --an outspoken military critic. According to Overby, the Administration then ordered a delay of Mississippi school integration--and Stennis returned to shepherd the appropriations bill through. At week's end, neither Stennis nor the Administration had denied the report.

Voted Down. Critics of the bill made three significant attempts to cut back appropriations. There was a stab at denying the Pentagon $533 million to buy more C-5A air transports, a plane that so far has proved uneconomical. Questioning the need for 15 attack aircraft carriers, the critics tried to clip $377.1 million appropriated for construction of a second nuclear carrier. Finally, they tried to cut $80 million from funds allocated for construction of an advanced strategic aircraft. All the efforts were voted down.

Most of the Pentagon critics agreed that their defeat was caused by their own lack of organization and by Defense Secretary Melvin Laird's self-imposed cutback of $4.1 billion. Further, Laird promised more appropriations reductions over the next three years by cutting military personnel from 3.5 to 2.6 million men. Currently the military's payroll is $41 billion annually.

For their part, the critics managed to cut a meager $70.6 million from the bill. Most of this was accomplished before the August recess. When the Senate reconvened, says Mondale, "we began to come across as a bunch of romantics unconcerned about defense. We aren't antidefense, we're just anti-waste, but that point began to get lost as this whole thing dragged on so long." Next time, Mondale warns that "we'll zero in and attack fewer items."

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