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When he announced that he also would be taking a quick tour of the base and making an announcement, he definitely had people's attention.

After all, Lott and his fellow Republican, Ark. Sen. Tim Hutchinson, had been sparring openly for several months over the fate of this very base, which has long been an important economic powerhouse in central Arkansas.

Hutchinson, who sits on the Senate Armed Services Committee, has charged that a proposal supported by Lott to split the C-130 training mission at the Arkansas base with Keesler Air Force Base in Lott's home state of Mississippi and Dobbins Air Reserve Base in Georgia was unfair, and might well force the Little Rock base to close.

The Arkansas base currently trains air crews from all military branches and 27 allied nations. For months, Hutchinson and the rest of Arkansas' congressional delegation had been worrying out loud that Lott would stab his neighboring state in the back in favor of his own state's interests.

Fearing the worst, Hutchinson had even taken the radical step of defying the majority leader by using his senatorial privilege to place a "hold" on the nominations of three Air Force officers and one defense department official -- all in protest over the C-130 issue.

Hutchinson demanded "credible assurances" that Little Rock Air Force Base would remain viable, regardless of any new plans to reassign training pilots to fly C-130 cargo planes. And he promised his nervous constituents that, if necessary, he would "go to war" with Lott over this issue.

Upon his arrival, Lott put an end to all that with a surprise announcement that left Hutchinson smiling broadly and the local reporters close to a state of shock. "It [the Little Rock base] is the current and future C-130 center of excellence," Lott said. "It is the permanent training base for C-130s. It is the current and future C-130 training base."

To Arkansans' ears, Lott wasn't mincing words: Their base would be saved.

Now that this was taken care of, Lott turned his attention to a whirlwind night of fund-raising at an annual $250-per-person holiday reception for Hutchinson's 2002 campaign, and a $100-a-plate dinner for the state Republican Party.

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