ROANOKE TIMES
Copyright (c) 1996, Roanoke Times
DATE: Sunday, October 27, 1996 TAG: 9610250041
SECTION: HORIZON PAGE: 1 EDITION: METRO
DATELINE: PORTSMOUTH
SOURCE: DALE EISMAN LANDMARK NEWS SERVICE
With 14 hours of campaign wrinkles in his shirt and a long day's shadow under his eyes, John Warner called for the black book.
In it was a collection of cheat sheets, giving him all Congress' military projects and complex spending formulas at the ready.
"Was that my bill?" Warner asked an aide, getting a last-minute briefing before taking the podium. "I've got to get this stuff straight." Warner wanted to make sure his audience of military retirees knew all he's done on their behalf.
As he stumps the state, the programs detailed in Warner's book are forming the front line of his political defenses. From Hampton Roads, where Navy shipbuilding contracts are cornerstones of the economy, to Northern Virginia, where thousands of military and civilian workers run and service the Pentagon bureaucracy, to the Roanoke Valley, where he takes credit for military purchases of ITT's night-vision goggles, Warner wants voters to know that his seniority and committee assignments give him considerable influence over the military budget.
Warner will tell you that he's never asked his colleagues to buy a ship or save a base that wasn't good for the country. The Cold War has passed, but our precarious national security demands a strong, modern military, he argues.
``I have spent the bulk of my career on national defense, security matters and anti-terrorism ,'' the three-term Republican said in a recent interview. ``I was really elected for that reason.''
Warner's strategy is obvious - and potent - in Virginia, where more than 230,000 residents draw Defense Department paychecks and tens of thousands more work on military contracts.
And it's one even his political foes concede Warner can justifiably pursue. ``Our focus really is on education,'' a high-ranking source in Democrat Mark Warner's campaign said. While the challenger is focusing on the future and attacking the senator's votes on education and health, ``it's a little more difficult'' to make headway on defense, he said.
Largely because of Warner, ``things like aircraft carriers have been moved up [and funded] when they weren't even budgeted'' by the Pentagon, said Frank Sullivan, a Democrat and a retired staff director for the Senate Armed Services Committee.
``Over the years, there was always a fight about aircraft carriers, and John Warner was always in the fight.''
* * *
The 18-year Senate veteran is at home in a crowd of sea dogs and jarheads. Before joining the Senate, he served in both the Navy and the Marine Corps. "I'm the only member in the history of the U.S. Senate who ever had to go to boot camp twice," he says whenever he can.
His language can turn sailor salty and colorful at times. After revelations that his organization had put out a TV commercial with a bogus photograph of his opponent, he told military retirees:
"Wish me luck. I'm in heavy seas, but I'll tell you we're battening down the damn hatches and I'm on the bridge and this campaign will survive and we'll win."
But the ties run deeper than talk.
He can tell stories about his father's war wounds, and the old flat-rimmed 5th Division helmet that used to hang on the wall, and say things like "I would not be a U.S. senator had it not been for what the wonderful Navy of ours did for me.
"I learned at my father's knee the meaning of patriotism. The meaning of service, honor and duty."
As the second-ranking Republican on the Armed Services Committee, John Warner has been a visible and, by many accounts, effective advocate for Navy programs and shipyard interests in Hampton Roads.
``The proof is in the pudding,'' Sullivan said. Among states, Virginia is second only to California in defense employment and contracting. In 1995, the most recent year for which records are available, Virginia firms held more than $12 billion in defense contracts. That was one-third less than top-ranked California, which has roughly five times Virginia's population.
And, last year, Virginia was the only state among those with a major defense presence to add jobs amid the Pentagon's effort to close excess bases. The state picked up some 4,000 jobs, most in Hampton Roads, because of base closures and transfers from other states; California lost 38,000.
Warner's defense advocacy already has paid off for him at the ballot box this year, said Bill Wood, director of the University of Virginia's Center for Political Leadership.
In June, fending off a primary challenge from former Reagan administration budget chief Jim Miller, Warner carried every precinct in Hampton Roads, the East Coast's largest military and shipbuilding center.
His success came despite opposition from the Chesapeake-based Christian Coalition and religious broadcaster Pat Robertson of Virginia Beach. Both Robertson and the coalition, the political arm of his on-air ministry, enjoy a huge following in their cities.
``They voted for pork instead of the Lord,'' Wood said.
* * *
To the extent he has them, Warner's critics on defense are all to his political left, arguing that he and other congressional Republicans are too quick to give the Pentagon whatever it wants - and then some.
``The kinds of military equipment that we're spending a lot of money on are still Cold War weapons systems,'' retired Vice Adm. John Shanahan said. ``Apparently the military leadership and the civilian leadership have not recognized that the world is changing and we aren't restructuring our armed forces to deal with future threats.''
Shanahan, director of the Center for Defense Information, a think tank of retired officers who generally support smaller military budgets, puts Warner among a group of congressional leaders who, he says, have placed the immediate economic interests of constituents ahead of the nation's long-term interest in a smaller, leaner military.
Whatever its merits, that line of attack is hardly promising in a state so historically conservative and dependent on defense spending.
``I would like to think that he sees the larger picture, but unfortunately all politics are local,'' Shanahan said.
``Warner is no great strategic thinker in the [Sam] Nunn or [Richard] Lugar sense,'' said Lawrence Korb, an assistant secretary of defense in the Reagan administration.
Warner ``has a sense that the services never have enough,'' Korb said, so he works to get them more and to make sure Virginia stays in the upper ranks of states supplying it.
Still, Korb argues that, by hard work and tenacity, Warner has established himself along with Nunn and Lugar and a small group of others as among Congress' most important voices on military matters. And with Nunn retiring this year, ``he'll be more influential'' if re-elected, Korb said.
``Warner is the most authoritative defense voice on the Republican side [of Armed Services], and I think he runs a close second to Sam Nunn as the most authoritative defense voice on the entire committee,'' said John Hillen, a defense analyst for the Heritage Foundation, a conservative think tank.
Hillen argues that Warner is underrated as a thinker and anything but an apologist for the services. When Gen. John Shalikashvili, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, appeared before the committee last month to outline plans to keep 5,000 troops in Bosnia after congressional authorization for the operation expires, Warner was among the idea's most outspoken critics, Hillen noted.
``Warner wasn't apologizing for General Shali, he chewed his ass. He doesn't take garbage from the military as far as I've been able to see,'' Hillen said.
* * *
For the past two years, Warner has focused much of his attention on a high-stakes battle over submarine contracts. In the midst of designing a new generation of attack subs, the Navy wanted to steer work on at least the first few of those ships to Electric Boat of Groton, Conn.
Backed by the Clinton administration, the plan would have taken Newport News Shipbuilding out of the sub business, perhaps permanently. And the Peninsula yard, Electric Boat's only competitor for sub work, wanted at least a share of the 30-sub, $50 billion program.
Early last year, Newport News began a massive lobbying and ad campaign to pressure Congress to order competitive bidding on the subs. Its calls for competition and claims that it could save the Navy billions on the work found sympathetic ears among House Republicans.
But in the Senate, the New England yard had powerful friends in both parties, particularly Maine Republican William Cohen, chairman of Armed Services' Seapower Subcommittee.
With the House pressing for a plan to build four ``technology demonstrator'' subs, each with a different design, before beginning the new line, closed-door negotiations over the entire defense budget dragged on for weeks.
The stalemate was broken when Warner outlined a compromise to split the first four ships in the new line between Electric Boat and Newport News, several sources said. The senator also crafted statutory language to satisfy the House's desire to push the Navy toward developing new sub technologies.
Though other members, particularly Reps. Herbert Bateman, R-Newport News, and Norman Sisisky, D-Petersburg, also played prominent roles, Warner ``was the absolute key,'' said one source familiar with the negotiations.
This year, when the deal threatened to unravel because the administration didn't budget enough money to cover Newport News' share of the work, Warner angrily accused Clinton and Navy leaders of reneging on their commitments. ``It's clear to me, and others, that there was a decided attempt not to put the dollars behind the program,'' he fumed.
Then, pressed by Warner at a public hearing, Defense Secretary William Perry said the subs should have first dibs if any extra funds for defense could be found. When the defense bill finally was passed, the subs were funded in full.
Though Warner acknowledges that others were helpful, he is effusive about his own role in the sub fight. ``That was a mighty burden we had, to turn around the president of the United States, the secretary of defense."
``I was able to persuade my colleagues that this is good for the country. You couldn't have contracts, which over the next 20 years could amount to between $50 and $60 billion, at this one single yard in a very small state, tightly controlled by labor interests.''
Such claims notwithstanding, associates say the knack for compromise Warner displayed in the sub fight typifies his handling of defense issues.
``He doesn't have an enemy on the Hill,'' one former aide said. ``If he ever gets challenged, he's got support on both sides of the aisle.''
``When you hold a meeting on the Hill, John Warner attends - something I cannot say about a lot of members,'' said Bill Anduhazy, a former House Democratic staffer who watched Warner from across the negotiating table through years of defense budget conferences.
"He's always tried to break logjams," he said. "I felt comfortable when John Warner walked into the room we were going to make some progress."
Staff writer Robert Little contributed to this report.
LENGTH: Long : 189 lines ILLUSTRATION: PHOTO: color photo of John Warner KEYWORDS: POLITICS CONGRESSby CNB