Two Area Nike Bases Included in McNamara Closure of Installations

              Two Area Nike Bases
Included in McNamara
12-7-65 Closure of Installations
The two Nike - Hercules'
missile bases in the Shreve-port-
Bossier City area are
among 149 military bases
across the nation and in 10
foreign c o u n t r i e s to be
closed, it was announced
yesterday in Washington,
D.C., by Defense Secretary
Robert S. McNamara.
McNamara said the closing
and reduction in operations of
bases in 39 states. Washington,
D.C., and 10 foreign countries
would result in an estimated!
total savings of $410 million a
year and elimination of 53,000
jobs.
U. S. Rep. Joe D. Waggonner
Jr. of the 4th Congressional Dis-trict
said the two local bases are
Battery A of the U. S. Army 5th
Missile Battalion, 562d Artillery,
Nike-Hercules Base BD-100 at
Bellevue in Bossier Parish and
Battery B, Base BD-50 at Stone-wall
in DeSoto Parish.
They are among 18 batteries in
seven states to be closed by next
July 1.
Other military bases are to be
shut down over a four-year pe-riod
beginning in 1966.
The local bases have a total
of 459 military and civilian per-sonnel
attached to them, Wag-gonner
said.
PERSONNEL LISTED
At the Bellevue base there are
205 military and 23 civilian
workers, while at Stonewall
there are 207 military and 24
civilian personnel.
Estimated savings per year
to be derived from closing of
the Bellevue base is listed at
$1,742,658, with $1,754,658 listed
for. the Stonewall base.
The Bellevue base is on a site
of 161 acres, while the Stonewall
base occupies 135 acres.
Waggonner y e s t e r d a y con-firmed
the announcement of the
closing of the bases and said
that consideration of the move
had been under .way'for more
than t vo years.
"I am not at all h^py about
their closing," he said. "Htnv-i
ever. I attach no significance
and can in no way relate their
closure to the future of Barks-dale
Air Force Base, where we
are to gain a great deal of
strength."
He added that military of-ficials
had told him some time
ago that the closing of the
bases would not affect the mili-tary
security of the area.
Waggonner said that it has not
yet been determined to what
use the sites of the two bases
would be put.
All civilian personnel will be
offered other Civil Service em-ployment
in this area or in other
parts of the United States, he
said. If moves are necessary to
other areas, the federal govern-'
ment will pay transportation
costs of moving of the Civil
Service employe sad his de-pendents,
and if job retraining
is necessary for any individual
displaced in the closures, he will
be retrained at government ex-pense.
EXCESS TO NEEDS
Pentagon officials said that the
missile bases were declared ex-cess
to needs for defense of
North America as a result of de-velopment
of newer weapons.
In addition, Naval Reserve
training stations at Bogalusa.
Houma and Crowley will be
shut down for an annual sav-ing
of about $24,000.
The Secretary of Defense had
announced he would delay until
Wednesday to formally identify
the bases to be closed, consoli-dated
or substantially reduced,
but congressional offices were
notified of the identity of the
installations yesterday in Wash-ington
and immediately began
disclosing them.
An immediate protest of the
closures came from Chairman
L. Mendel Rivers, D-S.C of the
House Armed Services Commit-tee,
who said the action is a
calculated risk that could prove
costly in view of the Viet Nam
fighting.
Rep. William H. Bates of
Massachusetts, ranking Repub-lican
on the committee, said he
is "extremely disappointed" that
McNamara did not consult with
Congress and hadn't "even ad-vised
us in advance."
"It appears to me," Rivers
said in a statement, "that the
closing of these bases is being
done purely for the sake of sav-ing
money. At a time when the
war in Viet Nam is escalating
with sudden, and in some re-spects,
unexpected intensity, now
is not the psychological time to
close any of our defense installa-tions."
But McNamara, announcing
his order at a news conference,
said the bases are "surplus to
our needs" and the cutbacks
"will be completed without de-creasing
military effectiveness
or limiting our current and fu-ture
activities."
He indicated that outright
closings will come to only a
minority of the 149 installations
affected, with most of them to
be reduced in size or consoli-dated.