Pentagon Warns of a Kremlin Reversal : Defense: Despite optimism over East Bloc changes, the Joint Chiefs urge U.S. to stay strong. NATO would have 70 days warning of attack in Europe, report says.

By MELISSA HEALY

March 14, 1990 12 AM PT

TIMES STAFF WRITER

WASHINGTON — The Pentagon’s Joint Chiefs of Staff on Tuesday cautioned against too much optimism about changes in the Soviet Bloc and called for the United States to maintain a “hedge against a sudden reversal of events that could threaten the interests of the United States.”

In their annual “net assessment” of the relative military might of American forces and their potential adversaries, the nation’s senior military officers conceded that sweeping changes throughout Eastern Europe would leave the Soviets “primarily on their own in any theater offensive.”

Already, the changes have given the North Atlantic Treaty Organization as many as 70 days’ warning of an impending Soviet attack on Western Europe, the assessment said.

But the United States still must maintain the ability to “surge” production of weapons, and the NATO alliance still must develop and field new nuclear weapons for use in a war in Europe, concluded the report, much of which remains classified.

House Armed Services Committee Chairman Les Aspin (D-Wis.) complained that the classified portions were more optimistic than those made public.

He said that one of the classified report’s most surprising findings indicates that NATO could defend against a Soviet military lunge at Western Europe without resorting to the use of nuclear weapons.

The Pentagon study was aired on Capitol Hill less than two weeks after William H. Webster, director of the CIA, told Congress that changes in the Soviet Bloc are virtually irreversible.

Webster’s testimony has fueled calls on Capitol Hill for deeper and more rapid defense cuts than those advocated by Defense Secretary Dick Cheney.

Cheney has held to his position that the United States, faced with the prospect of a reversal of Soviet reforms, must move slowly to scale back its military spending.

Asked about the split in his Administration in a press conference Tuesday, President Bush said, “I don’t think anybody believes, including Cheney, that the Soviet system is going to go back to where it was.” At the same time, he added, “we must retain a credible defense.”

In an apparent effort to end the near-public dispute between Webster and Cheney, Bush said, “I’ve talked to them now, and I feel that they are pretty close together.”

Lawmakers, responding to the Bush Administration’s mixed messages on changes in the Soviet Union, appeared uncertain of the report’s significance.

“Your classified statement sounds a lot more like Webster; your public statement sounds like Cheney,” Aspin complained to Maj. Gen. John D. Robinson, director of the study.

“I look at this net assessment, and I say we win!” Aspin said. “For the first time in history, (somebody’s) come up with an assessment on the NATO-Warsaw Pact balance where we win.”

However, Robinson said that the United States and its allies must continue to modernize their short-range nuclear forces “while recognizing the political sensitivity of land-based short-range nuclear forces.”

Aspin also criticized the latest Pentagon assessment, completed in late January, for not taking account of political and military changes that have since tipped the balance further. As a result, he said, the 1991 defense budget request is “clearly out of date.”

In testimony before Aspin’s committee, Robinson presented a picture of remaining Soviet military capabilities as “still . . . formidable,” in spite of setbacks.

“Although unilateral force reductions have eroded their capability to conduct successful, substantial conventional operations against NATO, significant force advantages remain favoring the Soviets,” Robinson said.

As the Pentagon unveiled its study, a bipartisan group of Washington military experts called the proposed 1991 defense budget an “excessively cautious and inordinately expensive response” to the rapidly diminishing Soviet threat.

The disintegration of the Warsaw Pact requires a restructuring of the U.S. military, starting with a reasonable goal of a 50% reduction in defense spending by the year 2000, said the group, led by Lawrence Korb, a Defense Department official during the Reagan Administration.