Building

By William R. Doerner.

When the House of Representatives unexpectedly voted against restoring any kind of aid to antigovernment rebels in Nicaragua, an angry Ronald Reagan vowed to push for legislation providing for assistance "again and again." The President overestimated the challenge.

Last week, not two months after turning thumbs down on his first request for $14 million in aid for the U.S.-supported rebels, the House voted handily to approve a second version calling for nearly twice as much, $27 million. Since the Senate had already approved a Reagan-sponsored aid authorization package of its own, the vote made it all but certain that the contras will shortly start receiving funds from Washington again after a hiatus of a year.

The outcome in the House was a major victory for Reagan, if only because it reversed one of the most embarrassing foreign policy setbacks of his presidency. Last week's vote sent a message of U.S. resolve not only to the contras, who have suffered some supply shortages but have managed to remain largely intact during the cutoff (see box). The congressional turnabout also reassured other governments in the region, notably those of Honduras and Costa Rica, from whose territory the rebels stage their forays into Nicaragua. Finally, the showdown over the contras vindicated Reagan's strategy of legislative persistence, a political trademark sometimes dismissed by his critics as merely a streak of Irish stubbornness.

Reagan made some major concessions to round up a majority in the Democratic-controlled House. U.S. aid to the contras will be limited to humanitarian supplies, such as food and medicine. Even defensive military equipment like radar is precluded in the House plan, though such items may be permitted in the Senate version. Restrictions on how U.S. aid can be used are largely technicalities, however, since the contras can now divert funds from nonlethal supplies to the purchase of more military goods.

A second, and potentially more important, difference between the House and Senate packages involves what agency will administer them. The House specifically prohibited the Administration from assigning the CIA to the job, as Reagan would like, while the Senate made no such stipulation. Nonetheless, in a provision fiercely safeguarded by the Administration, the House voted to let the CIA confer with the contras on intelligence, no matter who administers the aid. The two chambers have a few other points still to be reconciled, including the fact that the Senate authorized a larger sum ($38 million).

Reagan's most effective step in changing congressional minds was a declaration that U.S. assistance was designed not to overthrow the pro-Moscow Sandinista regime but to pressure it into coming to peaceful terms with its domestic opposition. In a letter to Oklahoma Democrat Dave McCurdy, who helped shape the compromise bill, Reagan said, "My Administration is determined to pursue political, not military, solutions in Central America." He also offered to explore "how and when the U.S. could resume useful direct talks with Nicaragua," which were broken off last January by Washington.

U.S. support for the contras, begun in 1981, dropped off following revelations 14 months ago that CIA operatives had helped them mine Nicaraguan harbors. When the Administration began sounding out legislators on the chances for a resumption early this year, it quickly became obvious that there was little sentiment in favor of military aid. The Administration sought to get around this opposition by drafting the "nonlethal" formulation, and seeking to push it through Congress in the midst of a budget debate. Result: a defeat in the House by the squeaker difference of 215 to 213, with 14 Republicans voting against.

Congressional sentiment began shifting almost immediately. For one thing, many conservative Democrats had voted against the White House plan on the assumption that it would be supplanted by their own bill, which called for $10 million in aid for Nicaraguan refugees. They were appalled when their liberal colleagues joined Republicans in axing the Democratic measure, leaving the U.S. with no aid at all for the anti-Sandinistas. Then, within days of the vote, Nicaraguan President Daniel Ortega Saavedra made a highly publicized journey to Moscow in search of increased Soviet aid. Said Joseph McDade of Pennsylvania, a key architect of the Republican victory in the House: "Some people realized they'd made a mistake in believing Ortega was an agrarian reformer."

G.O.P. leaders in the House went to work on a compromise that would address the concerns of their own defectors. These disgruntled Republicans wanted strict limits on the use of humanitarian aid, a promise to seek new bilateral talks and an acknowledgment that human rights in the four-year-old civil conflict had been violated not only by the Sandinistas but also by contra guerrillas. Reagan quickly complied. Said Republican Hamilton Fish of New York, who had voted against contra aid in April: "Everything I requested was accepted." Beyond the individual talking points, moreover, the Administration succeeded in convincing some skeptics in Congress that the aid package was a genuine step toward a diplomatic settlement. As drafted by National Security Adviser Robert McFarlane, the plan involves working through a new, broadly based anti-Sandinista group, the United Nicaraguan Opposition. It includes ex-Sandinistas who turned against the government because of its repressive measures, as well as some former followers of deposed Nicaraguan Dictator Anastasio Somoza. Though the Sandinistas have so far refused to negotiate with the group, the Administration believes that UNO can eventually lay legitimate claim to represent the forces of democracy. Says National Security Council Aide Donald Fortier: "The key issue is the emergence of a viable center."

Both Republican and Democratic supporters of the aid package believe there is an analogy between the emerging U.S. policy in Nicaragua and Washington's experience in El Salvador several years ago. By backing away from a lawless right wing in El Salvador and embracing Centrist Jose Napoleon Duarte, wrote Oklahoma's McCurdy in a Washington Post op-ed article, the U.S. ended up "on the side of democracy and helped weaken both extremes, setting El Salvador on the road to a political settlement." Crossing the centrist "threshold" in Nicaragua, says Fortier, "could create a dynamic of its own, just as in El Salvador."

On the day before the vote, Reagan invited 30 members of Congress to the Oval Office to answer questions and repeat the assurances of his letter. The session produced at least one Pauline conversion. Tommy Robinson, a freshman Arkansas Democrat who voted against the first aid bill, declared dramatically, "Sometimes you have to be big enough to admit that you made a mistake. Mr. President, I made a mistake. My party is wrong. You are right."

Quite a few other Democrats seemed to agree. While only 46 voted for the Republican package in April, 73 crossed the line last week. G.O.P. defections were cut in half, to seven. Said Minority Leader Robert Michel: "It was a good win, and we're grateful for it." House Speaker Tip O'Neill, who led a vigorous campaign against the April bill, mounted only a halfhearted challenge this time. The President, he warned, "is not going to be happy until he has the Marines and the Rangers there and has a complete victory."

Nicaraguan Foreign Minister Miguel d'Escoto denounced the House action as "a vote in favor of death, destruction and suffering." President Ortega announced that as a result of the vote, he was lifting a five-month-old voluntary moratorium on arms imports. That raised the possibility that Ortega would buy Soviet-built MiG jets, a move that Washington has previously warned might provoke a U.S. military response. Asked after his speech whether he had MiGs on his mind, Ortega replied cryptically that "Nicaragua is almost the only country in Central America that does not have the ability to defend itself rapidly by air."

Both sides in Nicaragua need time to assess what effect the new U.S. support, both financial and moral, will have on the military struggle. "It is clear that nothing would move off dead center without the funding," says a senior State Department official. "With it, we've bought another year to see where events take us." As for new negotiations, says another American diplomat, "there is no eagerness here to resume until the Sandinistas give us a reason that would be in our interest."

Over the longer term, the most important result of last week's vote may unfold not in Nicaragua but in Washington: the politics of gradual consensus. A solid majority in Congress now agrees that the U.S. must pressure the Sandinista regime for change, but not by attempting to overthrow it illegally. In a debate that has dragged on as long as Ronald Reagan's presidency, reaching that agreement is no small accomplishment.

With reporting by Neil MacNeil and Barrett Seaman/ Washington