DEFENSE: Arming to Disarm in the Age of Detente

(11 of 11)

spent on defense in 1964. Pentagon spending for 1975 also would amount to only 27.2% of the planned federal budget for the year, down almost one percentage point from this year. In 1964 42¢ of every federal dollar went for defense.

Sharp Attacks. Similar arguments, as well as an intense lobbying campaign that involved buttonholing about 70 Senators, enabled Schlesinger to get the Pentagon's 1974 procurement budget through Congress virtually unscathed. This year though, congressional critics will make a sharp attack on the counterforce nuclear strategy. Democratic Senator Harold Hughes of Iowa complains: "Either the doctrine is nothing new or it is the opening gun in a new arms race leading to a first-strike capability for the U.S. Schlesinger ruled out our seeking a first-strike force in his confirmation hearings. Is he now trying to reverse himself?" Warns Democratic Senator Thomas J. Mclntyre of New Hampshire, chairman of the Senate Armed Services Subcommittee on Research and Development: "If Schlesinger is trying to pick a fight on first-strike capabilities, he's going to get one."

Other than that debate, Schlesinger will probably encounter little opposition to his budget from Congress. Its members are too preoccupied by Watergate, too worried about an economic slowdown and too apprehensive about the Russian advances in rocketry to make much of a fight. Even Democratic Representative Patricia Schroeder of Colorado, who has been a consistent critic of Pentagon spending, predicts: "The budget will come barreling through."

Schlesinger sees no contradiction in the U.S.'s arming itself with new weapons at the same time that it seeks to disarm through agreement with Moscow. Russia, he says, "is still a totalitarian state" and must be dealt with "in a cautious process." He further explains: "It is necessary for the U.S. to participate in the maintenance of a worldwide equilibrium of forces, and this requires the American people to do what to some seems to be inconsistent: to pursue detente—an alleviation of political tensions—and to maintain an adequate defense capability. We want to have a relaxation of political relations with the Soviet Union, and at the same time our military posture must be sufficiently strong so that we maintain worldwide equilibrium of military forces."