THE VIRGINIAN-PILOT 
              Copyright (c) 1996, Landmark Communications, Inc.

DATE: Thursday, April 11, 1996               TAG: 9604110372
SECTION: FRONT                    PAGE: A3   EDITION: FINAL 
SOURCE: THE NEW YORK TIMES 
DATELINE: WASHINGTON                         LENGTH: Medium:   55 lines

MILITARY CHIEFS WANT TO SPEND $15 BILLION MORE NEXT YEAR THE REQUEST HAS THE SUPPORT OF REPUBLICANS, BUT IS AT ODDS WITH THE WHITE HOUSE.

The nation's military chiefs have proposed spending an additional $15 billion next year, putting their priorities at odds with the Democratic White House and in sync with Congressional Republicans, who have promised to spend billions more on the military.

The Army asked for more than $7 billion, the Navy and the Air Force for about $3 billion apiece, and the Marines for more than $2 billion in spending beyond that already requested by the Clinton administration for the coming fiscal year, budget documents show. And the Navy, after seeing the Army's request, is working on a new $7 billion proposal, congressional staff members say.

The written requests from the services for an additional $15 billion - a sum nearly equal to one percent of all federal spending is likely to create political and fiscal problems in this election year for President Clinton, who has tried to keep the military happy while cutting its budgets.

The requests, most of which were for new weapons spending, came at the urging of congressional Republicans, particularly Rep. Floyd D. Spence of South Carolina, who is chairman of the House National Security Committee. Copies of the requests were given to The New York Times by a federal official skeptical of the military's spending plans.

Congressional Republicans in charge of military spending, like Spence and his Senate counterpart, Strom Thurmond of South Carolina, chairman of the Senate Armed Services Committee, increased the Pentagon's budget by $7 billion last year. They have savaged Clinton's proposed Pentagon budget as ``smoke and mirrors,'' as Thurmond put it, and pledged to increase it by $13 billion or more.

Clinton's budget request for new weapons was $38.9 billion, which Gen. John Shalikashvili, the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, says is the lowest since the Korean War. The general told Congress last month that the nation should be spending $60 billion a year on weapons, a goal he would ideally like to reach by 1998.

For his part, Defense Secretary William Perry testified last month that $60 billion a year for weapons was a goal that cannot be reached until 2001. He and Clinton have promised to increase weapons spending every year for the next five years.

But for now, ``this is the best I can do with the constraints I'm working against,'' Perry told the Senate Armed Services Committee last month. ``For the last four years, we have hung on sort of by our fingernails.''

KEYWORDS: MILITARY SPENDING BUDGET by CNB