A Question of Tactics

By Ed Magnuson

The Administration gives a little to get El Salvador some more

The patience of Congress with the Administration's seemingly stringless military aid to the government of El Salvador clearly is running out. In a confused legislative situation, three separate committees last week moved to amend President Reagan's decision to transfer to El Salvador $60 million in military funds previously appropriated for Morocco. Said one Administration official wryly: "We have never had a four-handed policymaking game before."

They do now. Split down the middle, the Foreign Operations Subcommittee of the House Appropriations Committee decided to postpone its vote until after the congressional Easter recess. Despite intensive lobbying by Ronald Reagan and Secretary of State George Shultz, the Republican-controlled Senate Foreign Relations Committee last week voted to slice in half the $60 million package. And though approving the full amount, the Foreign Operations Subcommittee of the Senate Appropriations Committee, like the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, tied strings to the money: to get it, the Administration must promise to promote talks between the warring sides in El Salvador.

While the eventual outcome on the amount of money remained in doubt, there were signs that the Administration would try to accommodate Congress on the conditions the legislature wishes to attach to the funds. For the first time, some State Department officials were conceding privately that they can live with committee demands for negotiations in El Salvador, since they doubt that such talks actually would produce power sharing between the warring factions.

Though committee actions are not strictly binding, they have a political force that cannot readily be ignored. If the Administration rejects the committee's demands on the transfer of funds, it risks outright rejection of other requests for military aid to El Salvador that must go through the normal legislative process.

With this in mind, perhaps, the Administration seemed to be giving its El Salvador policy statements a more temperate emphasis. When he appeared before the Senate Appropriations Subcommittee last week, Secretary Shultz was calm and steady while under fire from both Republicans and Democrats. He insisted that "we will not support negotiations that short-circuit the democratic process and carve up power behind the people's backs."

When some Senators insisted that military aid should be linked to much greater progress by the Salvadoran government in stopping the indiscriminate killing of civilians by its soldiers and in punishing any transgressors, Shultz surprised them with his harshest public criticism so far: "You cannot get me to sit here and defend what has happened under the judicial system in El Salvador," he declared. "I won't do it. If they don't clean up this act, the support here is going to dry up."

The Secretary steered a tricky diplomatic course, however. When Senators argued that money should be linked to El Salvador's speeding the painfully slow process of bringing to trial the soldiers suspected of killing four churchwomen from the U.S. in 1980, Shultz objected. He said such an American insistence would "denigrate" the very judicial system the U.S. wants to strengthen.

The Senate subcommittee was far from totally satisfied with what Shultz offered. "We condemn their corruption and denial of human rights," said Democrat Daniel Inouye of Hawaii about the Salvadoran government. "But these abominations still persist. Why do we not lower the boom?" Complained Democrat Patrick Leahy of Vermont: "El Salvador is just thumbing their nose at us. They're saying give us dollars and go to hell." Then the subcommittee, which has a 5-to-4 Republican majority, voted 7 to 2 to let the Administration shift the full $60 million to El Salvador, but only if the U.S. states in writing that it would seek "unconditional discussions" between the government and the rebels and would limit the number of U.S. military advisers in that nation to the 55 that the Administration has in the past considered a self-imposed maximum.

Compared with what happened on the Hill next, the Administration had got off easily. In the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, members decided by "consensus" rather than a recorded vote to let Reagan transfer only $30 million to El Salvador. In addition, they called for "unconditional negotiations" in El Salvador and asked the Administration to urge the Salvadoran government to speed prosecution of those suspected of killing the American women.

The congressional pressure on El Salvador actually is more an argument over means than goals. Both the Administration and its critics want participation by the leftists in free and fair elections and an end to the fighting. As one senior U.S. official analyzed it: "What they [Congress] don't want is to be on the side of the bad guys. What they do want is to make it clear that the U.S. is not the obstacle to a political solution. The guerrillas are the obstacle." The congressional committees hope to use the leverage of restricting military aid in order to speed that process.

The Administration now seems a shade more willing than in the past to go along with such pressure tactics, if only to get the Salvadoran army its money. Both sides recognize the real possibility that the leftists may not truly want to negotiate at all and that the U.S. cannot force the Salvadoran government to do so. State Department Spokesman John Hughes took an upbeat view of last week's congressional skirmishing. Said he: "This demonstrates a bipartisan consensus that the route to peace in Central America is through democracy and reforms behind a shield of military security." -- By Ed Magnuson. Reported by Johanna McGeary and Evan Thomas/Washington

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