The Check Is Not in the Mail

By GEORGE J. CHURCH

Angela Palacios Chavarria, 31, a barefoot Nicaraguan peasant, can explain in two words why she voted for Violeta Chamorro's National Opposition Union (U.N.O.) over the Marxist Sandinistas ten weeks ago. "Lapas verdes" (greenbacks) says Palacios, voicing a common opinion that a vote for the U.N.O. was a vote for U.S.-financed prosperity. Surely, this argument goes, since Washington spent $312 million over nine years to bankroll the contra rebellion and another $9 million to back Chamorro's campaign, it will now lay out as many lapas verdes as necessary to rebuild Nicaragua's ravaged economy and keep its friends in power.

/ But Palacios had better not hold her breath -- and neither should the Panamanians who are still living in tents four months after their homes in Panama City were destroyed by the U.S. invasion that ousted dictator Manuel Antonio Noriega. True, both House and Senate have approved $420 million for Panama and $300 million for Nicaragua, as part of an omnibus bill increasing spending for projects ranging from space research to grasshopper control. But the aid is below what George Bush wanted and well behind schedule. Bush had called for passage by April 6.

Until last week the assistance seemed likely to be held up still further by a dispute about -- of all irrelevant subjects -- abortion. The Senate had added to the omnibus bill a provision permitting the District of Columbia to use local public money to fund abortions, despite warnings that it would prompt Bush to veto the whole thing. Faced with that prospect, which could have delayed aid to Panama and Nicaragua for a month, the Senate agreed to delete the abortion provisions from the bill before it is sent to the President.

Even so, as Bush told Panamanian President Guillermo Endara at the White House last week, the delay had been "embarrassing." More than embarrassing, the delay could be dangerous too. In Panama City knots of protesters already gather daily outside the presidential palace to decry the lack of action on the economy. One placard told Endara and associates that YOU'VE BETRAYED US.

In Nicaragua too the economy will not wait. Within 48 hours of taking office on April 25, Chamorro felt compelled to devalue the cordoba, doubling prices and intensifying an already raging inflation (1,700% last year). She also must cope with 25% unemployment and an $11 billion foreign debt. Says U.N.O. spokesman Luis Sanchez: "If we don't receive even a minimum amount ((of U.S. aid)) immediately, the situation will become catastrophic. We might as well call up Daniel Ortega and give him back the country."

Such confusion and delay are all too characteristic of the whole U.S. foreign-aid program. Parsimony as well: Bush's request of $14.6 billion for fiscal 1990, which began Oct. 1, is only $1.5 billion higher than the $13.1 billion spent nine years ago. Moreover, nearly half of all aid is allocated to the so-called Big Five -- Israel, Egypt, Pakistan, Turkey and the Philippines -- mostly to fulfill old commitments. That leaves pitifully little to further such new goals as nurturing fledgling allies. Bush's request for aid to % Namibia, a new African democracy, is an all-but-invisible half a million dollars. Administration officials last year even went hat in hand to Japan and Western Europe to solicit aid for some South American countries that Washington is trying to wean away from economic dependence on the drug trade.

Influential voices in Congress have been calling for a thorough review and possible overhaul of the entire foreign-aid program, and Bush last week pronounced himself "interested" in the idea. The Administration, however, is undecided about what it wants. Some Bush advisers have proposed foreign aid as a topic of one of the five commencement addresses the President will deliver this month, but so far they cannot agree on what he ought to say. Some senior officials would be content with an enlarged discretionary fund that the President could direct as he sees fit. The added flexibility, these officials suggest, would meet foreign-policy needs without any increase in total appropriations.

More flexibility is certainly necessary, but so is more money. Appropriations have been held down, however, in part by what seems to be a growing public hostility. In a Harris survey released last month, respondents opposed 50% to 47% the proposition that the U.S. should give "economic aid to other nations for purposes of economic development and technical assistance"; four years earlier they had favored the idea 59% to 36%.

Part of the resistance reflects abysmal ignorance. At community forums in his district, says Congressman Jerry Lewis, a California Republican, "I have never had a suggestion from the audience that foreign aid was lower than 15% of our budget." The actual figure: 1.2%. So long as such misconceptions rule, the outlook for foreign-aid reform is distressingly dim.

CHART: NOT AVAILABLE

CREDIT: TIME Chart

CAPTION: WHAT BUSH WANTED

With reporting by Michael Duffy/Washington and John Moody/Panama City