"We're in a Trough"

By GEORGE J. CHURCH

Reagan wins the Adelman vote but loses ground elsewhere

For a moment the scene was reminiscent of the heady days of 1981, when White House arm twisting won vote after vote in Congress by unexpectedly wide margins. There was Ronald Reagan grinning before the cameras again, this time at a quickie news conference called to celebrate the Senate's confirmation of Kenneth Adelman, 36, as director of the Arms Control and Disarmament Agency by a vote of 57 to 42. Said the President: "I am deeply gratified."

But the illusion of triumph lasted for only the two minutes or so that Reagan required to read his opening statement and begin taking questions. Reporters peppered him with queries about congressional charges that the Administration is violating U.S. law by trying to overthrow the Marxist-led government of Nicaragua. "We are complying with the law," said Reagan. Indeed, the President insisted that CIA aid to antigovernment guerrillas known as contras "is aimed at interdicting these supply lines" through which arms flow from Nicaragua to leftist rebels in El Salvador.

The apparent sincerity of the President's statement notwithstanding, many legislators simply do not believe him. Last week congressional committees moved to shut off all aid to the contras, despite Reagan's protest at the news conference that "any legislation which confines our relationship with a single country . . . is restrictive on the obligation that the Constitution imposes on the President" to conduct foreign policy.

Moreover, the Capitol Hill revolt against his Central American strategy was only one of the foreign policy setbacks that Reagan suffered last week. Though the President voiced hope that the confirmation of Adelman "will mark the beginning of a new bipartisan consensus on the vital issue of nuclear arms reduction," test votes in the House pointed to passage this week of a nuclear-freeze resolution that the White House vehemently opposes. West German Chancellor Helmut Kohl, visiting his fellow conservative in the White House at week's end, brought another unwelcome message: when Reagan plays host to the nation's closest allies at a summit meeting in Williamsburg, Va., next month, he will find them unwilling to go along with any plea for much tighter curbs on trade with the Soviet bloc.

All this came on top of the stunning blow that King Hussein of Jordan dealt to Reagan's Middle East peace initiative by declining to enter talks with Israel on the future of the West Bank (see WORLD). Said Presidential Counsellor Edwin Meese, with heavy understatement: "Some weeks are better than others." One foreign policy planner put the point more bluntly: "We're in a trough."

Against this troubling background, the confirmation of Adelman was especially welcome to the Administration because it demonstrated that the President and his aides retain the persuasive powers that have been little in evidence on other issues. Though Senators generally found Adelman bright and personally attractive, many viewed the nomination of someone so young and inexperienced in the intricacies of weapons negotiations as a signal that the Administration has no real intention of reaching arms-control agreements with the Soviets.

In fact, on the eve of the ballot, Adelman was widely expected to be confirmed by only three or four votes. Massachusetts Democrat Paul Tsongas, a leader of the anti-Adelman forces, explained the eventual 15-vote margin this way: "We lost to President Reagan and 'Ma Bell.' " He referred to a barrage of last-minute phone calls to undecided Senators: from the President, who personally telephoned eight waverers; from several other top Government officials past and present; and from the mustachioed nominee himself. Even so, Adelman is only the seventh presidential nominee in the past 24 years to have 40 or more Senate votes cast against him. The White House won his confirmation primarily by appealing to the powerful Senate tradition of letting any President have the aides he chooses. It did not allay the apprehension that the Administration is not wholly serious about arms control.

That fear is precisely the driving force behind the nuclear-freeze resolution, which last week easily survived attempts by Administration supporters to attach watering-down amendments. Two key ones lost in the House last week by votes of 219 to 195 and 229 to 190. On this issue, Administration lobbying has been as blundering as it was deft on the Adelman confirmation. Secretary of Defense Caspar Weinberger argued the White House case last week to 25 House Democrats, but succeeded only in angering them by referring to the freeze as "unilateral"; the language of the resolution explicitly states that it must be negotiated to be mutually binding on the U.S. and the Soviet Union.

The freeze, however, is a dubious idea that is likely to be rejected by the Republican-controlled Senate, and in any case would be binding on Reagan only if he signed the resolution--which is about as likely as his announcing himself to be once again a liberal Democrat. The growing Capitol Hill revolt against U.S. activities in Central America holds far greater potential for forcing a real change in foreign policy.

At his news conference, Reagan in effect confirmed what had become public knowledge: that the U.S. is aiding the Nicaraguan contras, perhaps 2,000 of whom have infiltrated across the border from bases in neighboring Honduras. But he echoed an argument made by other Administration officials to congressional committees: the contras, though they proclaim that their intention is to bring down Nicaragua's Sandinista government, cannot possibly prevail against the far more numerous and better-armed Sandinista troops. Thus, Reagan insisted, the U.S. is not violating the Boland Amendment, which forbids aid "for the purpose of overthrowing the government of Nicaragua."

The amendment's author, Massachusetts Democratic Congressman Edward Boland, termed this argument "splitting hairs," and a swelling chorus of congressional voices denounced the Administration's course as both illegal and bad policy. Iowa Republican Congressman Jim Leach criticized the Administration for doing to Nicaragua precisely what it condemns the Sandinistas for doing to El Salvador, that is, supporting an armed insurrection. Democratic Senator Christopher Dodd of Connecticut, noting that the contras reportedly include many supporters of Anastasio Somoza Debayle, the hated dictator ousted by the Sandinistas in 1979, asserted: "If there is one thing [Nicaraguans] fear more than the Sandinistas, it's a return of the old Somoza forces."

Most of all, many legislators fear that Washington aid to counter a leftist revolt in El Salvador and favor an antileftist rebellion in Nicaragua will bog down all of Central America in an endless guerrilla war in which the U.S. will become ever more deeply involved. A House subcommittee voted last week to limit military aid to the government of El Salvador to $50 million in each of the next two fiscal years, less than half of what Reagan has proposed, and to forbid aid "directly or indirectly" supporting the Nicaraguan contras unless Congress specifically approves it. Colorado Democrat Gary Hart, an avowed presidential candidate, introduced a similar resolution concerning Nicaragua in the Senate. Administration strategists hope to prevail in floor votes in both houses by stressing that the U.S. must do everything it can to prevent the spread of Marxism in Central America. But the outcome is uncertain.

Ordinarily, a visit from Chancellor Kohl (see WORLD) would be a welcome distraction from these woes. Reagan once asserted that "we speak the same language" (which is true as a political metaphor but not as a literal fact: Kohl speaks no English). But on this visit Kohl indicated that, if Reagan presses allied heads of government at Williamsburg to put new restrictions on East-West trade, he will accomplish no more than he did when he raised the issue at last year's economic summit in Versailles. At that conference the U.S. proposals caused a deep split that was papered over by a meaningless compromise. Other German officials spelled out the reason for Kohl's stand, contending that European allies have enough trouble trying to persuade their constituents to accept the stationing of U.S. nuclear missiles in Western Europe. Said West German Economics Minister Otto Lambsdorff, just before the Kohl visit: "It would certainly not be wise of [Reagan] to put strains on East-West trade on top of the problems of the mis sile decision."

Part of Reagan's manifold troubles in foreign policy trace to the inept salesmanship of his strategies by such officials as Weinberger and National Security Adviser William Clark, a failure that the Administration has only begun to reverse in its successful campaign for Adelman's confirmation. But the problems also reflect a deep public unease, in the U.S. and abroad, that the substance of policy is too stridently hardline. That worry may or may not be justified. It cannot be ignored. -- By George J. Church. Reported by Christopher Redman and Evan Thomas/Washington

With reporting by Christopher Redman and Evan Thomas/Washington This file is automatically generated by a robot program, so viewer discretion is required.