Secretary of Defense William J. Perry
Tuesday, February 28, 1995, 11 a.m.
Note: Participants in this briefing were Dr. Perry; Dr. John Deutch, Deputy Secretary of Defense; and Mr. Kenneth H. Bacon, Assistant to the Secretary of Defense (PA)
Mr. Bacon: Welcome to the press conference on base closure and realignment. Secretary Perry will start with a statement and then take several questions. And then Deputy Secretary Deutch will follow up with a statement, more charts, and he'll stay until the questions are exhausted or he is. He's a man of great stamina. I present Secretary Perry.
... ... ...
Dr. Perry;
The Air Force I want to spend a moment on here. There is the closure of the Minuteman missile field at Grand Forks; the Rome Laboratory in New York; the Kirtland Air Force Base, but not the Phillips Laboratory, is a realignment in New Mexico; Reese Air Force Training Base in Texas; and Brooks Air Force Base in San Antonio. These are the major significant Air Force actions.
... ... ...
This is an example of the three or four issues which are in our transmission to the commission. We'll have small provisos on them. In the case of Grand Forks, there is an outstanding issue about if we close the missile fields there, whether there is any ABM Treaty consequence for that. We are allowing time to report back to the BRAC Commission before we make a final decision, and we have an alternative specified if there is an ABM Treaty program at Grand Forks.
... ... ...
So we did go back to the Air Force and made sure that their provision was permitting full security of the area, of Kirtland Air Force Base, which includes Sandia National Laboratory in Albuquerque. So there were moments that we went back through this process for clarification. There were five or six issues that we looked at exceedingly carefully, and had much interaction here at the end, of which I've mentioned two. One is Kirtland. The other one is Grand Forks. There are three or four others that we looked at in great detail.
... ... ...
Q: Sir, Fort McClellan was recommended for closure. It's been recommended twice before and the Commission rejected that recommendation. I'm curious, how many closures on this list have been recommended before and rejected by the Commission?
And two, regarding Fort McClellan, the Commission last time suggested that environmental permits for transferring some of the CBTF to Fort Leonard Wood be in place before the process began. That isn't the case, and I'm wondering how you reach that decision?
A: I can't give you an accurate answer to how many facilities are on here that have been proposed before, but Fort McClellan is certainly one of them. I do know that the proposal that we are sending over to the BRAC Commission says that if the environmental permits are not granted by the State of Missouri at Fort Leonard Wood, then Fort McClellan should not close and should not be moved. So in that sense, the proposal for -- as I mentioned -- there are two or three places like Grand Forks where there are in the submissions of the services' in particular provisos if certain contingencies arise.
... ... ...
-END-