unitex@rubbs.fidonet.org (unitex) (09/19/89)
Posting Date: 09/18/89 Source: UNITEX Network, Hoboken, NJ, USA
Host: (201) 795-0733 ISSN: 1043-7932
DoD News Briefing
Thursday, September 14, 1989
Mr. Pete Williams, ASD/Public Affairs
Good afternoon. A couple of announcements for you.
First of all, Secretary Cheney will be on the road next week. He
will be leaving some time Monday afternoon and be gone through
the rest of the week. He's going to Colorado, California, and
Washington State to visit military installations and other
defense facilities. He'll also be making some speeches to
several civic and business groups. He'll be doing an edit-
orial board with a West Coast newspaper of some prominence. We
will have a press advisory for you on the Secretary's agenda and
the various points of contact in each location.
The Secretary will be hosting a retirement ceremony in honor of
Admiral Crowe on Friday, September 29 at 11 a.m. This will be
at Worden Field at the Naval Academy in Annapolis. At that
ceremony, Admiral Crowe is scheduled to receive his fourth award
of the Defense Distinguished Service Medal. He will also get
the Distinguished Service Medals of the Army, Navy, Air Force,
and the Coast Guard. It will be his third Navy award, by the
way. That ceremony will then end with a joint service pass in
review and a fly-over.
As to covering this event, he will meet with reporters 10 a.m. in
Mahan Hall at the Naval Academy before the 11 a.m. ceremony. So,
if you wish to cover Admiral Crowe's 10:00 o'clock session and
the retirement ceremony, there will be a bus that will leave the
Pentagon's mall entrance at 8 o'clock in the morning and return
to the Pentagon after the ceremony. I'm told by the Navy that
press credentials are required. Those who want to go by bus
should contact the following person, LTCol Conrad Busch in the
Chairman's Public Affairs Office by the 27th of September. His
telephone number is 697-4272.
Reporters who wish to cover the retirement events, but who don't
want to go on the Pentagon bus, should contact a different
person. Either Jim Kaiser or Carol Feldmann at the Naval
Academy Public Affairs Office. Their phone numbers are
261-2261, and that is an area code 202 number; or an area code
301 number, 267-2291, by the 27th of September for more
information about the requirements for getting there to cover
the event.
Finally, those traveling by car should enter the Naval Academy
via Gate 3 on Maryland Avenue. We'll have a memorandum, but I'm
going through this in great detail for those folks who cover the
Pentagon via transcript. I want to make sure that this is all
in the transcript. At Gate 3, media representative will be
required to show their press credentials. They will receive
media bad press kits, and escorts, and possibly balloons and
other such things.
Secretary Cheney announces today that the President has nominated
Lieutenant General Edwin H. Burba, Jr., USA, for reassignment
as Commander-in-Chief Forces Command at Fort McPherson,
Georgia. Obviously, he's going to replace General Powell. He
is also appointed to the grade of general. He is now assigned
as the Commanding General of the Combined Field Army, Republic
of Korea/United States. He is a native of Oklahoma. He was
born September 13, 1936 in McAlester, Oklahoma.
I don't see Fred Francis here today. I see Catherine. But I
would certainly like to pass my congratulations along to NBC for
the Emmy Award for its coverage of the VINCENNES. The Post did
not note in its story tod that was Fred Francis and his
producer, Naomi Spinrad, who were the individual winners. So we
give our congratulations to both of them.
John asked a question Tuesday about the D-5, and I have a little
more information about that, in terms of the status of the D-5
program, what other cause has been found of the problem, whether
this would affect the initial operating capability, and that
sort of thing.
The answer that I gave the other day, there's just a little bit
more that I would like to pass along. The investigation
continues on the exact cause of the failure of the D-5 missile,
but the Navy says that based on the otherwise successful pad
launch test program and the effective operation of all the
sea-launched systems except for the missile's first stage nozzle,
that the Navy is confident that technical resolution will not
require a major redesign of the missile. The cause of the
failure is now well understood, the Navy says, so that a
definitive answer to correct the problem is expected shortly.
The current plan then is for corrective action to be finished in
time to meet the March 1990 initial operating capability, so no
delay in meeting the IOC is anticipated.
New flight testing of the D-5, which would incorporate these
fixes, is now expected to be conducted in November and
December. So the Navy remains committed to the schedule for the
funding and the planned implementation of the D-5.
Those are all the announcements I have except for one thing. I
would like to note that there was a Washington newspaper today
with a brief item that said the Pentagon had been invaded by
people sent over here by Secretary of State to make sure that
we're all singing from the same song sheet and thes are
supposedly spies for Secretary Baker. I would describe that
story as goofy and say that I asked the Secretary (Cheney) about
it this morning and he has absolutely no idea what it's about.
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