DATE: Sunday, October 26, 1997              TAG: 9710260042

SECTION: FRONT                   PAGE: A3   EDITION: FINAL 

SOURCE: THE WASHINGTON POST 

DATELINE: WASHINGTON                        LENGTH:   31 lines

NATIONAL GUARD LOSES ITS BID TO EARN A SEAT ON JOINT CHIEFS

Senate and House conferees have killed the Army National Guard's bid this year for a four-star seat on the Joint Chiefs of Staff and instead agreed to create two two-star jobs to advise the chairman of the Joint Chiefs on Guard and Reserve affairs.

The agreement is contained in the 1998 defense authorization bill, which emerged from conference negotiations Thursday after weeks of deadlock on an even more-contentious issue involving military depots.

Saturday, Guard spokesmen objected to the provision as insufficient and declared their intention to pursue the four-star proposal next year in hopes of gaining a greater say in Pentagon decisions on future spending and troop levels.

Pentagon leaders have opposed granting the Guard a place on the Joint Chiefs, worried such a move would destroy unity in the Army.

The Guard has been engaged in a bruising political war with Army leaders over the relevance of its 370,000 reservists and their claim on dwindling military resources.

The Guard wants the 495,000-member regular Army to bear the brunt of future troop reductions, arguing that in the absence of a superpower threat, the United States should return to its historical reliance on state militias.

But Army commanders have insisted on making cuts in the Guard proportional to reductions in the professional force.

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