Former US defense chief Caspar Weinberger dies at 88

WASHINGTON, Mar 28 (Reuters) Caspar Weinberger, U S defense secretary under President Ronald Reagan, died today at age 88, his family said.

Weinberger died about 5 a.m. 1530 hrs in a hospital near his home in Mount Desert, Maine. He had recently been treated for pneumonia.

''He was just a worn-out guy,'' his son, Caspar Weinberger, Jr., told Reuters.

''He should be remembered as a world statesman, a great American patriot,'' the son said. ''What he did with Reagan really brought down the Soviet Union. They stuck to their plan and simply outspent the Soviets despite all sorts of doubts here.'' Weinberger, who presided over an unprecedented peacetime military buildup costing more than 1 trillion DOLLARS, began his government career as a cost-cutter.

When he took the defense post in January 1981, Weinberger soon erased the nickname -- ''Cap the Knife'' -- critics had pinned on him in his penny-pinching days as federal budget director under President Richard Nixon.

Weinberger performed with gusto the task of persuading Congress to spend over 1 trillion dollars on arms in Reagan's first term and billions more after that.

He also steadfastly opposed concessions to Moscow in arms control negotiations advocated by Secretary of State George Shultz and other more moderate members of the Cabinet.

He made himself unpopular with many lawmakers by his unbending, often contentious push for funds for arms and for Reagan's Strategic Defense Initiative -- a program, commonly known as ''Star Wars,'' to develop a land- and space-based shield against incoming ballistic missiles.

A longtime member of Reagan's inner circle of California friends, Weinberger was one of the president's strongest supporters in the Cabinet.

He called ''absurd'' a White House decision in 1985 to sell arms to Iran but supported Reagan a year later after the president decided to send missiles and spare parts to Tehran.

Reuters SHR DB2232