How the cancellation of just one weapons program closed a major defense contractor and left hundreds of suppliers in the lurch
THE NIGHT OF OCTOBER 16, 1986, was not exactly a shining moment for the U.S. Senate. In that normally genteel chamber, where politicians refer to each other as "my distinguished colleague" and "the honorable gentleman," and where euphemism often masks tough political choice, the debate had turned small and bitter.
There was Arizona's Barry Goldwater telling New York's Alphonse D'Amato, "You are out of your head." And there was an indignant D'Amato, suggesting to Goldwater that the general from whom he had been taking his cues should be "put in the dog pile." Interjecting himself into the coloquy was the urbane Daniel Patrick Moynihan, whose primary concern seemed to be that a prolonged debate might force him to miss an upcoming World Series game between the Mets and the Red Sox.
The atmosphere in the Senate that night crackled with political electricity. At midnight, the temporary appropriations that had kept the federal government operating during the previous two weeks would automatically expire. The members of Congress, eager to get home for some last-minute campaigning before the November elections, were rushing to finish their work on the 1987 budget. The plan had been to get the document to the White House by the end of the day for the President's signature.
Now, however, there was a snag. Tucked inside the $1-trillion appropriation was, in the scheme of things, a small and seemingly routine item -- $151 million for the first batch of new training jets for the Air Force, known as T-46s. There was no question that the Air Force needed a new trainer -- its young pilots were getting their first taste of jet work in antique T-37s, "Tweedybirds," first put into service in the mid-1950s. Compared with today's frontline fighters, the T-37s were strictly Stone Age, and the Air Force rated their replacement of crucial importance to the nation's defense.
The T-46 was also of crucial importance to Fairchild Republic Co., in Farmingdale, N.Y., representing, as it did, the company's only significant contract. By last year, the Long Island aerospace firm had built two T-46 prototypes, and along with $159 million from the Air Force, Fairchild had spent $129 million of its own in preparation for the production of the first batch of 650 planes. All told, the Air Force contract was expected to run eventually to $1.5 billion, with millions of dollars in follow-up business with allied governments overseas. The jobs of some 3,000 Fairchild workers were directly tied to the T-46 program.
With the passage of the Gramm-Rudman budget reduction act, however, the blue-suited generals of the Air Force were forced to trim $6 billion from the budget projections, and they immediately turned a cold eye to the T-46. Perhaps they calculated that the Tweedybird could soldier on for a few more years. Or perhaps they figured, of all their major defense contractors, a small and struggling Fairchild Republic was capable of mounting the least effective resistance. Furthermore, the company had had management and production problems with the aircraft -- there had been cost overruns and the prototype that was initially rolled out was missing crucial parts. For whatever reason, in March 1986 the Air Force announced that it would cancel the T-46 program.
Not surprising, the move did not sit well with New York State's delegation in Congress. Bad enough, they argued, that New York was already contributing more to the nation's defense budget than it was receiving in military pay and contracts. Now the Pentagon was proposing to snuff out a company that had served the country well, and had been a major employer on Long Island for 56 years.
The New Yorkers' complaint fell on sympathetic ears in a legislature where logrolling is a professional sport. Over the Pentagon's objections, $151 million for the T-46 was included in the 1987 budget bill.
On the night of October 16, however, the legislators from the Empire State met their match in Arizona's Barry Goldwater. Major General Barry Goldwater, to be more precise, of the Air Force Reserve. As chairman of the Senate Armed Services Committee, Goldwater had always been generous to his military alma mater, but when the Air Force said it wanted not to build a new airplane, that was that, as far as he was concerned.
And so as midnight drew near, in what was scheduled to be his last full day in the Senate after 30 years, Goldwater rose from his seat to offer an amendment to the 1987 budget. His proposal was not only to wipe out the $151-million T-46 appropriation for the coming year, but to retain in the Treasury $170 million appropriated but not yet spent from the previous year's budget. Addressing the need for some new training planes for the American pilots, Goldwater proposed, in addition, that nothing more be spent until the Air Force had conducted a competitive "fly off" between the T-46 prototypes and an upgraded version of the aging T-37.
It is a rare event in the Senate when a chairman of the Armed Services Committee takes to the floor to oppose a new weapons system, and he does so only with the near-certain knowledge that he has the votes to prevail. In this case, Goldwater's position was bolstered by the fact that the aging T-37's just happened to be built by Cessna Aircraft Co., of Wichita, in the home state of Senator Robert Dole, then the Senate's majority leader. Cessna, battered by a downturn in the general aviation industry, looked to the T-37 upgrade for its own short-term survival, just as Fairchild looked to the T-46.
As Goldwater finished his presentation that night, his equally determined colleague from New York took the floor for what he promised would be an extended discussion of Goldwater's amendment -- in common parlance, a filibuster. The T-37 was a "turkey" of an airplane, D'Amato argued, and investing any more money in it would be "like pouring money down a rat hole." Then D'Amato, in his best Broadway voice, began to read off the names of top Air Force generals who had testified in the past to the overwhelming need for the new trainer. And he read, in its entirety, a General Accounting Office report that had found the T-46 not only to have met but exceeded the specifications written by the Pentagon. At 10 p.m., D'Amato passed the rhetorical baton to his New York colleague, Moynihan, whose capacity for extended discussion is surpassed only by his facility for melifluous hyperbole. "This is not defense planning," he roared. "This is Gramm-Rudman."
