By BILL WALSH

By BILL WALSH

Rappahannock News Special Writer

Secretary of Defense Les Aspin is scheduled to unveil the mother of all base closure lists on Friday, and the fate of Vint Hill Farms Station in Fauquier County is anyone’s guess.

Congressman Frank Wolf, R10th, visiting constituents in Fauquier on Monday, told the Rappahannock News that the base “to my knowledge ... isn’t [on the list]. I can’t say for sure because I haven’t seen the list,” he said, “but I saw a preliminary list that was out last week, and Vint Hill was not on it. Virginia gets by pretty much unscathed” in the massive defense restructuring, he said.

However, while speaking with reporters Tuesday, Gov. L. Douglas Wilder said one base was scheduled for closure in Northern Virginia and he believed it was to be Vint Hill.

Gov. Wilder said he had received the information from Sen. John Warner, whose office refused to confirm the report Wednesday morning.

Rep. Wolf said that he doesn’t think that the base will be closed, and pointed out that even the removal of troops in the 201st Military Intelligence Battalion to Fort Gordon, Georgia, has been slowed.

The move of the battalion has been approved, he said, but only some 70 soldiers will leave this year, with the remainder scheduled for departure between March and May 1904.

His office has been working behind the scenes to try and assure Vint Hill’s place in the army of the future. Wolf said. “We asked [the Army] to look at backfilling [to replace departing 201st soldiers] when we met with them in December," the congressman said. “They said that this is such a key site that there may be the opportunity for backfilling as they close down other bases. So we’re going to have a look at that to see, because there certainly are expansion opportunities out there.

“I’d be interested in knowing. Technically, you could have argued that some of the CIA expansion could have come out here,” Wolf said.