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Dole Rips Clinton In Calif

By TOM RAUM
Associated Press Writer
Tuesday, June 18, 1996 1230PDT
© Copyright 1996 The Associated Press

SUNNYVALE, Calif. (AP) -- Bob Dole scoffed at President Clinton's defense policies on Tuesday, saying his refusal to embrace a missile defense system left the nation subject to ``nuclear blackmail'' and attack.

Campaigning hard for California's 54 electoral votes, Dole used the Lockheed-Martin plant here -- where work has been under way on a missile defense system since 1968 -- to attack Clinton's overall defense stance.

He said Clinton had driven defense expenditures to their lowest percentage of the gross domestic product ``since the bombing of Pearl Harbor. And some of you may remember that.''

``If I'm going to err, I'm going to err on the side of maybe spending too much,'' he said.

Speaking to about 500 Lockheed employes in an outdoor setting, Dole criticized Clinton for failing to endorse a GOP plan to build a missile defense system to protect the country against incoming missiles -- a scaled down version of the so-called ``Star Wars'' plans of the Reagan years.

``I happen to believe that the threat posed by the proliferation of missiles is real and is growing. ... If some nation launched a missile at us today, we couldn't stop it. And I happen to think this is intolerable.''

Dole asserted that Chinese officials, in last year's brief standoff over Taiwan, had threatened ``to rain nuclear bombs on Los Angeles'' if the United States intervened militarily in behalf of Taiwan.

``In my administration, California will never again be submitted to nuclear blackmail and the American people will be protected. I will build a missile defense system and I will keep the peace,''

he said. ``I will put money back into defense,'' Dole said.