Closing military bases can leave local economies not only unscathed, but sometimes better off, economists say. The experience of Indianapolis is a case in point.

Two military installations were to have closed there in the past five years.

• Closure of Fort Benjamin Harrison removed 3,400 active-duty soldiers from the community, as well as over 1,000 civilian jobs.

• Then the 1995 closure of the Naval Air Warfare Center would have cost the city another 2,600 jobs.

• But the city convinced the Navy that the center -- which made advanced electronics products -- could be privatized, saving the city the jobs and the Navy the cost of moving.

• Today, unemployment there is 2.6 percent, the city has a new 2,000 acre Benjamin Harrison State Park, the former base has generated 12,000 new jobs, nearly 1,000 new homes, and $7 million in property taxes.

The Pentagon had thought that in 34 communities hit with base closings in 1993, unemployment would rise by an average of 5.8 percentage points. But that pessimism proved unfounded, analysts say, because it ignored what could be done with the resources left behind.

Cities which act quickly to turn disaster around have the best chances of success, experts say.

A Department of Defense report last month called for two more rounds of base closures.

• The time taken to complete handover plans from military to local control has fallen from an average of 57 months for bases closed in 1988 to 21 months for those closed in 1995.

• The benefits from the first four rounds of closures -- in 1988, 1991, 1993 and 1995 -- have been net savings estimated at $56.7 billion.

• Nearly 2 million new civilian jobs have been created for every one lost in communities where bases have been closed in the past 35 years.

Source: "From Boots to Electronics," Economist, June 21, 1997.