Military: Base Politics

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"I'd like a list of bases that you want to close and can close," Senate Armed Services Committee Chairman Barry Goldwater solemnly told Defense Secretary Caspar Weinberger. "I don't need them this afternoon, but maybe tomorrow morning would be time enough." As Goldwater's hearing room rocked with laughter, Weinberger promised to respond.

A week later the Secretary submitted a token list of three bases, craftily selected to see just how serious Congress was on the subject. Weinberger's choices--the Army's Materials Technology Laboratory in Watertown, Mass., the Philadelphia Naval Hospital, and a big piece of Lowry Air Force Base in Denver --are all redundant. But they also happen to be in districts of outspoken Democratic critics of the Pentagon: House Speaker Tip O'Neill of Massachusetts, House Budget Committee Chairman William H. Gray III of Pennsylvania, and Congresswoman Patricia Schroeder of Colorado. Predictably, all three raised a howl. Somehow, Pentagon Spokesman Robert Sims kept a straight face when he declared, "I don't think Secretary Weinberger's decision . . . had anything to do with partisan politics whatsoever."