Black Budget

Two years ago, a startling item appeared in President Reagan's budget. It was a military project code-named Aurora, and no further description or explanation was given. But Aurora caught people's attention anyway. That's because the projected budget showed its cost soaring from $80 million in 1986 to $2.3 billion in 1987. What sort of project grows like that? Not one the Pentagon wants to talk about. In the administration's defense budget this year, there is no mention of Aurora.

For years, the Pentagon has hidden dozens of military and intelligence programs from Congress, including several secret strike forces and espionage units, according to congressional sources. The secret programs discovered this year by congressional staff members "had never been reported to Congress," the Senate Appropriations Committee said in its annual report on the defense budget. "There are dozens of these programs that we knew nothing about," a senior congressional staffer said.

Under pressure from President Bush, Congress has canceled a proposal to unveil the secret "black budget" that pays for U.S. intelligence. The Senate intelligence committee had voted to disclose the secret sum, the bottom line of the intelligence budget. CIA chief Robert M. Gates endorsed the idea during his confirmation hearings in September. He said the disclosure would show that "the mentality of the Cold War has changed" at the CIA and the White House. Apparently it hasn't.

Where would we be without the free press? I congratulate Tim Weiner and The Inquirer for the Feb. 8 article "A growing 'black budget' pays for secret weapons, covert wars. " It is most important for me as a citizen and taxpayer to have this information. I plan to pressure my U.S. representative to investigate this "black budget" and reduce it drastically. Other needs in this country are far more pressing - health care, education, transportation, agriculture and the environment.

For the first time, Congress has ordered the Pentagon to disclose basic facts about the "black budget," its fund for secret military and intelligence programs. That budget stands at about $35 billion, The Inquirer reported last year. Secret military spending has grown more than eightfold under the Reagan administration. Funding for secret intelligence and espionage programs hidden in the Pentagon's budget has more than doubled. "The black budget is bigger than the total military budget of any nation except the Soviet Union," Rep. George E. Brown Jr. (D., Calif.

The Pentagon is facing a growing congressional clamor for facts about the super-secret "black budget," that portion of its military and intelligence programs that are classified. Two bills introduced yesterday would compel the Department of Defense to reveal the size and nature of black programs, which are now hidden from congressional scrutiny. The Pentagon's black budget has tripled to about $35 billion under the Reagan administration, The Inquirer reported last month. It is growing faster than any major sector of the federal budget and now exceeds federal spending for education, transportation, agriculture or protection of the environment.

More than one out of every four dollars for Pentagon research and development is earmarked for secret programs, an Inquirer analysis of President Reagan's fiscal 1989 military budget shows. At a time of sweeping military cuts, the Pentagon is seeking a 28 percent increase in its "black budget" for secret research, development and procurement. The Pentagon's black budget has more than tripled since Reagan took office. The $35 billion black budget buys secret weapons and funds secret warfare.

Under pressure from President Bush, Congress has canceled a proposal to unveil the secret "black budget" that pays for U.S. intelligence. The Senate intelligence committee had voted to disclose the secret sum, the bottom line of the intelligence budget. CIA chief Robert M. Gates endorsed the idea during his confirmation hearings in September. He said the disclosure would show that "the mentality of the Cold War has changed" at the CIA and the White House. Apparently it hasn't.

For years, the Pentagon has hidden dozens of military and intelligence programs from Congress, including several secret strike forces and espionage units, according to congressional sources. The secret programs discovered this year by congressional staff members "had never been reported to Congress," the Senate Appropriations Committee said in its annual report on the defense budget. "There are dozens of these programs that we knew nothing about," a senior congressional staffer said.

The secrecy surrounding the nation's "black budget," the covert billions spent on intelligence and classified military programs, is under attack. The Senate intelligence committee has ordered that the bottom line of the nation's entire intelligence budget - a single lump sum reflecting all U.S. intelligence spending - be made public for the first time next year. Approval by the House intelligence committee is expected. The secret money, believed to be close to $30 billion a year, provides all the funds for the CIA and 11 other U.S. intelligence agencies.

So just what did the Navy get for the $3 billion it spent on the stealth attack plane, the A-12 Avenger, before Defense Secretary Dick Cheney canceled it in January? "Three billion dollars went down the drain, and we have essentially nothing to show for it," said Rep. Andy Ireland (R., Fla.) during a House Armed Services Committee hearing on the A-12. "Just a pile of papers," said Rep. Norman Sisisky (D., Va.) of the same committee, referring to six short stacks of drawings and memoranda.

Defense Secretary Dick Cheney went off like a heat-seeking missile and killed a secret Navy aircraft called the A-12 Avenger in January after concluding he had been deceived about its prohibitive cost and crippling problems. Three months later, the Avenger lives again, shrouded, like its predecessor, in the Pentagon's secret "black budget. " The Pentagon investigators who broke the news to Cheney last winter said the A-12's secrecy had shielded him from the facts. The A-12's price tag was at least $93 billion - almost twice what it would cost to defeat Iraq.

The biggest single item in the Defense Department's new budget is $5.4 billion for "selected activities. " What activities? Secret business, the Pentagon says. They are part of the department's stealth budget - about $34 billion in 1992. These funds are shielded from public scrutiny by Pentagon secrecy, deleted from the published budget, concealed by code words and classification. This covert spending, what the Pentagon calls the "black budget," funds all the nation's intelligence agencies, and more than 100 secret weapons programs.

If you think hell has no fury like a woman scorned, you probably don't know any journalists. Consider the controversy that a small Washington, D.C., magazine started two days ago over the Inquirer's latest Pulitzer Prize - its 14th in the last 13 years. The 5,100-circulation National Journal has asked the board that gives away America's most prestigious journalism award to take it back from Inquirer reporter Tim Weiner, who won last week for his three-part series on the U.S. Defense Department's secret multibillion-dollar spending program dubbed "the black budget.

Inquirer reporter Tim Weiner yesterday won the Pulitzer Prize for national reporting for a series of articles detailing the explosive growth of secret Pentagon spending. Weiner, 31, won the award for stories that revealed the United States was spending $35 billion a year in its so-called Black Budget on covert military and intelligence activities. His stories, part of a continuing series, showed how this secret spending had more than tripled under President Reagan. It was the fourth year in a row that The Inquirer has won a Pulitzer Prize, the most coveted award in journalism.

More than one out of every four dollars for Pentagon research and development is earmarked for secret programs, an Inquirer analysis of President Reagan's fiscal 1989 military budget shows. At a time of sweeping military cuts, the Pentagon is seeking a 28 percent increase in its "black budget" for secret research, development and procurement. The Pentagon's black budget has more than tripled since Reagan took office. The $35 billion black budget buys secret weapons and funds secret warfare.

For the first time, Congress has ordered the Pentagon to disclose basic facts about the "black budget," its fund for secret military and intelligence programs. That budget stands at about $35 billion, The Inquirer reported last year. Secret military spending has grown more than eightfold under the Reagan administration. Funding for secret intelligence and espionage programs hidden in the Pentagon's budget has more than doubled. "The black budget is bigger than the total military budget of any nation except the Soviet Union," Rep. George E. Brown Jr. (D., Calif.