THE VIRGINIAN-PILOT
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: Friday, December 29, 1995 TAG: 9512290563
SECTION: FRONT PAGE: A1 EDITION: FINAL
SOURCE: BY KARL VICK, THE WASHINGTON POST
DATELINE: WASHINGTON LENGTH: Medium: 83 lines
The cry echoed past the empty offices and bounced back down the darkened Hallway to the patch of carpet where Elizabeth King sat in jeans and gym socks, sorting through manila folders that seemed to go on forever.
``I hate this!'' she wailed. ``Somebody buy me a drink!''
No federal agency dies in total silence, not even the Defense Base Closure and Realignment Commission.
The independent agency that shuttered 243 domestic military bases closes down itself today. By 5 p.m. the files that so tested the commission's acting general counsel will be on their way to the National Archives, she and the other 10 remaining staffers (down from a high of 80) will be out on the street, and Congress will be back to doing its own dirty work.
``We were the heavies,'' said Charles C. Smith, the last executive director of a commission created to insulate elected officials from the pain of shutting down excess military capacity left over from the Cold War. This it did in 1991, 1993 and finally 1995, with the same bloodless punctuality that it now brings to its own demise.
Closing on time and on budget, the commission may go down as one of the great bargains of modern government.
Sen. Sam Nunn, D-Ga., who helped write the legislation creating the commission, said it worked ``amazingly well. Not perfect, but to compare it to anything else I've seen around here in 25 years.''
``We saved the taxpayers over $5 billion a year for the next four years, and we did it for under $13 million,'' Smith said. ``I think even closing ourselves down we're doing a great job.''
By October the commission had vacated two-thirds of its office space on the 14th floor of a high-rise in a Washington suburb. Most of the space was being turned over to defense telecommunications, but the Office of the Secretary of Defense was taking custody of the computers - rows of 486 processors purchased when the old 286s kept collapsing under the weight of the data staffers were entering.
``I'd say they batted about .900,'' said Richard Bitzinger, an analyst at the Defense Budget Project, a watchdog group (which in the new year becomes the Center for Strategic and Budgetary Assessments). ``If you consider that enough people with heavy vested interests came out dissatisfied, then the commission did do their job.''
Few were less satisfied in 1995 than President Clinton. Under the legislation that created the commission, either house of Congress could reject its final choices, but only the president could send the commission's recommendations back for further consideration. No president had dared to do that, but Clinton was sorely tempted this summer when the latest panel defied the Air Force by voting to close a Sacramento maintenance depot.
Throwing 11,000 people out of work was not something the president was eager to do in a state considered crucial to his re-election, especially since earlier base closure rounds already had cost California 80,000 military jobs. Though Clinton eventually signed off on the package, he complained loudly.
Yet in a backhanded way the biggest political flap in the five-year history of the commission also underscored the independence that was its reason for being. Clinton had appointed all eight of the commissioners he excoriated, including chairman Alan J. Dixon, a former Democratic senator from Illinois. Former representative Jim Courter, R-N.J., was chairman of the 1991 and 1993 commissions.
The technical staff, on the other hand, was drawn from the armed services whose bases were on the line, which occasionally brought the Pentagon's less public but no less potent politics into play. As chairman, Courter found occasion to complain that a uniformed staffer was feeling pressure from a superior who could affect his promotion.
``They didn't come to me, but when I found out about it we stopped it short in its tracks,'' Courter said. ``A great deal of credit goes to those young uniform people who stood up to their superiors. I'd be gone soon. They'd be back in the Pentagon . . . and I'm sure there were moments when they made a decision thinking, `There goes my career.' ''
The most persistent pressure, of course, came from the hundreds of communities that stood to lose a major employment center, and trying to assure them of fairness turned commissioners into shuttle diplomats. At least one panel member visited every base nominated for closure, including those in Alaska and Guam.
KEYWORDS: MILITARY BASES BASE CLOSINGS by CNB