
                         Roanoke Times
                 Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.

DATE: SUNDAY, July 22, 1990                   TAG: 9007220048
SECTION: NATIONAL/INTERNATIONAL                    PAGE: A-1   EDITION: METRO 
SOURCE: Associated Press
DATELINE: NEWPORT NEWS                                LENGTH: Medium

BUSH STRESSES MILITARY MIGHT

President Bush took his campaign against big defense cuts to one of the nation's few remaining shipyards Saturday, saying the United States must retain a strong military despite the apparent demise of the Cold War.

"While freedom has made great gains, we have not entered an era of perpetual peace," Bush said at a christening ceremony for the nation's newest aircraft carrier, the George Washington.

Standing in a shadow of the carrier's massive bow, Bush quoted the nation's first president: " `To be prepared for war is one of the most effective means of preserving the peace.' "

The message contrasted with Bush's recent attempts to persuade Soviet President Mikhail Gorbachev that the United States poses no military threat.

The focus on defense coincides with growing debate in Congress over how deeply and quickly military spending should be reduced as a result of the collapse of the Soviet threat in Europe and the spawning of democracies in the East Bloc.

Speaking at the Newport News Shipbuilding yard, Bush made no mention of the budget debate on Capitol Hill. On Friday, however, the president said at Warren Air Force Base near Cheyenne, Wyo., that he was willing to accept a Senate Armed Services Committee proposal for a $289 billion defense budget for the coming fiscal year.

Bush said Congress must "hold the line" at the Senate panel's spending figure and that he needed greater flexibility in pruning the size of the armed forces. The Senate panel called for cutting 100,000 personnel from the armed services of 2.1 million. That is nearly three times the number Bush has proposed dropping.

With the Navy's top officers at his side during the carrier christening ceremony, Bush said the United States must sustain the military strength of a superpower.

"We must maintain a policy of peacetime engagement and armed forces sufficient to sustain our vital national interest," he said. "We are . . . the pivotal factor of stability. We will not shrink from this responsibility."

Barbara Bush, with the president and their daughter, Dorothy LeBlond, at her side, christened the 1,040-foot carrier, smashing a bottle of champagne against the hull.

by CNB