Weinberger Departs

Pentagon Transition Begins; Reagan Names Carlucci Defense Secretary, Powell Security Adviser

President Reagan exchanged emotional farewells yesterday with Defense Secretary Caspar W. Weinberger in a ceremony that also marked a transition from the rearmament years of Weinberger's tenure to a new phase of arms-control agreements in the final stretch of Reagan's presidency.

Weinberger, often a hard-liner on arms accords, made no mention of any prospective Soviet-American arms treaties during a White House Rose Garden ceremony at which Reagan also announced his nomination of national security adviser Frank C. Carlucci to succeed Weinberger. Reagan also named Carlucci's deputy, Army Lt. Gen. Colin L. Powell, to be his sixth national security adviser.

In his farewell remarks, Weinberger spoke forcefully of Reagan's devotion to the Strategic Defense Initiative, the research effort opposed by the Soviets to build a space-based missile defense system. Until Reagan embraced the SDI concept in 1983, Weinberger had expressed doubts about it.

"You've steadfastly kept us to the goal of deployment of your Strategic Defense Initiative, toward which we are making very great progress very rapidly," Weinberger said. "And you've refused all temptations, Soviet or otherwise, to be diverted from that deployment."

Only last week, in announcing his Dec. 7 meeting here with Soviet leader Mikhail Gorbachev, the first summit with a Soviet leader in the United States since 1973, Reagan said he would discuss flexibility in the deployment schedule for the missile defense system as part of the negotiations on strategic arms.

The administration is now turning attention to a possible agreement to halve strategic arsenals and some high-ranking officials said they expect Carlucci to be more of a "problem-solver" in arms control. By contrast, Weinberger, in his departure remarks yesterday, preached the virtues of adherence to principle which he said "must come ahead of what's popular."

At a later Pentagon news conference, Weinberger said he hoped the arms-control agreements would not come "at the cost of injuring, in any way, strategic defense or our ability to deploy it as soon as possible."

"If we want to deploy, then we shouldn't cripple ourselves and tell ourselves we can't think about certain things, or make up lists that we mustn't mention," he told reporters. "I don't think we should offer it up or yield any blandishments or any glittering prizes that the Soviets may dangle in front of us."

Weinberger's departure is viewed by some high-ranking officials as the end of an era in which he was an unyielding advocate for defense programs and who often counseled Reagan toward confrontation. "Frank Carlucci is not Cap Weinberger," said a senior White House official who has worked with both. "They have two different styles, two different approaches, and they will serve in two different time frames."

This senior official predicted that Carlucci would be able to "resolve many of the problems that now exist in the conflict between the administration and Congress on defense policy" and "he may or may not be able to facilitate negotiations with the Soviets on important issues." Carlucci, the official added, is "as tough" on SDI and treaty verification "as Cap ever was."

Sources said Weinberger notified Reagan more than two weeks ago of his intention to resign because of the deteriorating health of his wife, Jane. Weinberger said yesterday that his wife is "extremely uncomfortable" becuse of two or three broken vertebrae. He said she had been treated for cancer but had consulted "a great many doctors" who think the malignancy is gone.

Weinberger said he offered his resignation because "I think it's time I do a bit more to fulfill those obligations" to his wife. "And that's the long and the short and the tall of it."