Remarks at a Meeting With the Chairmen and Ranking Republican Members of the Senate Armed Services and Appropriations Committees on the Fiscal Year 1977 Defense Budget

WELL, I think I'll leave politics aside for a moment and talk very precisely about the defense budget, and the four of you have a very important role in it.

I submitted, as all of you know, the largest defense budget in the history of the country. And I submitted it knowing, first, that we had to have it and, secondly, that we had to reverse the trend that has been developing over the last few years.

All of you know as well as I do, that the United States does have at the time a rough equivalency with the Soviet Union. But the situation is such we cannot permit it to change adversely, and that's why the budget of $112 billion in obligation authority and $101 billion in spending, I think, is absolutely mandatory.

You four are experts and we need your help in the months ahead in convincing others that that rough equivalency must be maintained, and the budget that I have submitted will do so.

We have had, as all of you know, a trend that was going in the wrong direction vis-a-vis the buildup of the Soviet Union. We're in good shape now, and a l-year military budget of this magnitude will not be sufficient.

This is an important budget this year, but I think we have to have continuing budgets of this magnitude with the necessary growth factor in the future. And I have told the Secretary of Defense that I am going to back him to the hilt in his presentation to the Congress and to the American people.

We have come to a very critical point. Last year, I submitted a good defense budget. This one, I think, is a mandatory budget for fiscal year 1977. We put about $1,700 million more in for the strategic forces, for the B-1, the Trident, for the initial procurement for the B-1.

We've got about $4,700 million in there for conventional force strengthening. We have about $1 billion more in for research and development. We have extra money in that's absolutely necessary for the maintenance and operation of our Army, Navy, Air Force, and Marines.

But all of this money must be, as we see it, approved in fiscal '77 in order to maintain that mandatory rough equivalency with any other super power. We have it today, and we're going to keep it in the future in order to deter any aggression, to maintain the peace, and to protect our national security.

I know from my many contacts with all of you that you feel basically as I do. Our problem is to sell the Congress and to get the full support of the American people.