Cheney Predicts Gorbachev’s Fall : Soviet Union: Defense secretary warns that U.S. would rebuild its forces if hard-liners took over the Kremlin.

WASHINGTON —  Defense Secretary Dick Cheney predicted Sunday the eventual downfall of Soviet President Mikhail S. Gorbachev amid the economic chaos in his country and warned that the United States would rebuild its military forces if Soviet hard-liners took over the Kremlin.

“If we don’t see continued prospects for less conflict between the (superpowers) in the years ahead, then I’ll have to come back to the President . . . and say, ‘Sorry, we can’t go down as far or as fast as originally anticipated,’ ” Cheney said on NBC’s “Meet the Press.”

But the defense secretary contended that the collapsing Soviet economy will prevent any immediate Soviet military threat against the United States and that Washington will reduce its defense spending on schedule for the next two years.

“Their economy is so bad and falling so fast that I don’t think they can insulate the military from that,” Cheney said, “and therefore the likelihood in the future of a threat from the Soviet Union may turn more on their inability to control events inside the Soviet Union than it will on their ability to project power outside the borders.

“I’m fairly confident that for the next 24 months we’re in pretty good shape,” he said.

Cheney’s remarks came a day after President Bush said the Soviet Union’s future course will be slow, sometimes “extremely painful” and fraught with setbacks but that the reform process Gorbachev began six years ago must succeed to assure world peace.

Cheney, reminded of his outspoken forecast two years ago that Gorbachev’s reform efforts would fail and he would be replaced by someone far more hostile to the West, said: “Well, the prediction does unfortunately look pretty good now. . . . At some point he is clearly going to be gone.”

Cheney also discussed the Administration’s new plan to close 31 military bases as part of a planned 25% reduction in Pentagon spending and force levels over the next five years. The cutbacks would trim U.S. military strength to 1.6 million troops by 1995--from 2.1 million now.

The defense chief said that U.S. planners are counting on a full Soviet troop withdrawal from eastern Europe to match U.S. cutbacks in western Europe. But he said even the reduced U.S. forces would be able to respond quickly to another crisis in the Persian Gulf if need be.

“What’s different is that we no longer will have to fight a global war with the Soviets on short notice,” Cheney said. “And, therefore, we can reduce the total size of the force and still be able to deal with this kind of contingency.”

Cheney predicted that Congress will approve the base closings despite the loss of jobs associated with the shutdowns.

“Otherwise, we’re going to end up paying money to maintain bases that we don’t have forces for. . . . It’s vital (to closes bases) if we’re going to preserve the quality of the force as we reduce it,” he said.