Key House Member Will Call for an End to Stealth Bomber Program, Sources Say : Defense: Rep. Aspin’s switch on the issue is called crucial. Another lawmaker declares that ‘the B-2 is now dead.’

WASHINGTON —  House Armed Services Committee Chairman Les Aspin, one of Congress’ most important voices on defense issues, on Monday will publicly call for termination of the $62-billion B-2 Stealth bomber program, sources said Friday.

Aspin, a Wisconsin Democrat who has straddled the fence on the bomber for several years, will join more than 200 House members opposed to the plane, setting up a bruising fight with the Senate and the Bush Administration, both of which support continuing the program.

Some opponents predicted that Aspin’s switch would be the crucial blow needed to kill the controversial program. Rep. Barney Frank (D-Mass.), an influential member of an anti-Stealth coalition, declared that “the B-2 is now dead; there will be no more Stealth bombers.”

More than $26 billion already has been spent on the B-2, which is being built by the Northrop Corp. at plants in Pico Rivera and Palmdale. Approximately 11,400 workers are employed on the project at Northrop alone, and thousands more work at subcontractors around the country.

Aspin plans a floor speech on Monday to announce his support for an amendment that would terminate the program with the 15 planes already under construction.

Aspin was working on the speech Friday night, but would not confirm that he intended to announce his opposition to the bomber. He said only, “Stay tuned.”

Northrop spokesman Loye Miller declined to comment on Aspin’s decision. “I can’t answer ‘what if’ questions,” he said. “Aspin hasn’t told us what his plans are.”

An Air Force official said he was aware that Aspin planned to speak about the B-2 on Monday, but said the service “won’t have any comment until he makes his statement.”

B-2 opponents in the House now claim they have a majority supporting termination of the radar-evading bomber. But even if the House votes to kill the B-2, some believe it will survive in a House-Senate conference committee meeting to reconcile differing versions of next year’s Pentagon budget measure, now before Congress.

Sen. Sam Nunn (D-Ga.), influential chairman of the Senate Armed Services Committee, supports the Administration’s plan to build 75 of the bat-like bombers at a total cost of about $62 billion.

Nunn’s committee last week voted to authorize $4.5 billion to support the Administration’s request to build two B-2s in fiscal 1991, which begins Oct. 1.

The opposition to the B-2 in the House is led by Reps. Ronald V. Dellums (D-Berkeley) and John R. Kasich (R-Ohio), sponsors of the amendment to terminate the program at 15 aircraft. Neither would confirm Aspin’s plans, but they and several other co-sponsors of the measure to kill the B-2 are expected to appear with Aspin on Monday.

The B-2 put Aspin in a difficult political bind as his committee begins work next week on the Defense Department spending bill. A majority of his House colleagues now appear to oppose further spending on the B-2, and Aspin wants to be seen as leading, rather than trailing, the parade.

However, his stance puts him at odds with the widely respected Nunn and with the Republican Administration, with which he has tried to forge a centrist coalition to support a measured reduction in military spending.

Aspin nearly lost his chairmanship of the committee several years ago when he bolted from his Democratic colleagues to cut a deal with the Ronald Reagan Administration to keep the MX missile program alive. He supported the B-2 last year, but House opposition to the plane has continued to grow.

The course Aspin has chosen carries a high financial price. Because of the steep development costs of the B-2, which is designed to evade Soviet air defense radar well into the 21st Century, the per-plane expenses of terminating the program at 15 craft are staggering, Air Force officials said.

In a letter to the chairman of the defense appropriations subcommittee last month, Air Force Secretary Donald B. Rice said that ending the program at 15 planes would cost $35.4 billion. The cost of one bomber would thus be $2.36 billion--more than the price of an entire wing of 24 top-of-the-line F-15 fighters.

“This is a high price to pay for essentially no increase in our combat capability,” Rice said. The Air Force believes it needs 75 of the planes for the fleet to be militarily significant.

Rice said that building the additional 60 planes would cost only $27 billion more, meaning the additional planes would cost only $450 million each.

Rice further argued that the House plan would obligate the Air Force to pay $3.6 billion in “termination costs” under contracts with Northrop and major suppliers.