U.S. WAR SPENDING REDUCED BY HALF

Press, Volume CX, Issue 32361, 29 July 1970, Page 17

U.S. WAR SPENDING REDUCED BY HALF

(N.Z.P A -Reuter—Copyright) SAN CLEMENTE (California), July 28.

President Nixon, who has reduced United States spending on the Vietnam war by half, today called in his senior White House advisers to begin planning for next year’s defence budget.

Mr Nixon has held out little hope of further substantial cuts in military spending. The Secretary . of Defence (Mr Melvin Laird) said after a meeting with Mr Nixon yesterday that the Administration had reduced spending on the war by half from the figure of SUS29,OOOm a year obtaining when it took office. This substantial reduction, Mr Laird said, had been made possible by Mr Nixon’s policy of “Vietnamisation” gradually withdrawing United States troops and handing a greater share of the fighting to the South Vietnamese. On the Middle East, Mr Laird said that the United States was watching the balance of power very closely. There had been Important de-

, velopments in the last few . days and there were hopes of moving forward on the 1 proposals by the Secretary of State (Mr William Rogers) for a cease-fire, and negotia- ! tions under the auspices of ' the United Nations. He said that Russia had in • existence or under construei tion, more land-based missiles ! than the United States, and ' while America maintained a ■ superiority in submarine- . based missiles, this would be : lost to the Soviet Union in 1974. ■ “The United States hopes

to move, as soon as practicable, to an all-volunteer service in Vietnam and everywhere else in the world, but this is a matter of money, and pay adjustments will run to several thousand million dollars,” Mr Laird said. i The Pentagon he added, felt ■ that it was very important i for Congress to approve a I third anti-ballistic missile i site in the United States. The ■ Military High Command i wanted to install one in Misi souri, in addition to those in North Dakota and Montana. Among those called in for today's defence budget meeting were Mr George Shultz, who was recently appointed “budget overlord” by the President, and Dr Henry Kissinger, Mr Nixon's chief adviser on foreign affairs. The budget proposals will not be disclosed until the Government sets out the entire Federal Budget for 1972 early next year but Mr Nixon said at a press conference last week: “There is very little left to take out of defence. We will still try to cut in defence as well as in other areas, but to suggest that the money for big, new domestic spending programmes can come out of substantial cuts in defence is, I think, not realistic.” Much of Mr Nixon’s time in San Clemente this week, on his working holiday, is being devoted to the main Budget Tomorrow he will hold preliminary discussions on domestic spending for the next financial year. On Thursday, Mr Nixon will hold the first televised press conference he has given outside Washington.