Once More into the Breach

By Ed Magnuson

"You can't fight attack helicopters with humanitarian aid." With that observation to a group of influential Republican Senators last week, President Reagan signaled his determination to renew the battle over U.S. military aid for the contra forces fighting the Sandinista government of Nicaragua. Although Congress has prohibited such aid since 1984, Reagan plans to request as much as $100 million to support what he frequently refers to as "freedom fighters" in Nicaragua. At least $60 million would be in military aid, the rest in humanitarian supplies. The decision to carry the fight to Capitol Hill once more stemmed from a Jan. 10 meeting of the National Security Council, which approved a directive calling for increased aid and involvement not only in Nicaragua but also in Afghanistan and, more controversially, Angola. The document declares that the U.S. intends to play an even more active role than in the past to apply pressure on the Sandinistas, send covert military aid to the rebels opposing Angola's Marxist government, and help the Afghans harass the Soviet occupying forces.

Administration officials express confidence that sentiment is turning against the Nicaraguan government. "I sense a certain militancy growing," said one senior aide to Reagan. Congress last year limited U.S. help to the contras to $27 million in humanitarian supplies and cut off all military aid. Only days after that decision, Nicaragua's President Daniel Ortega Saavedra flew off to visit Moscow; interpreting the trip as a nose-thumbing gesture, some Congressmen said they regretted having rejected the military funding. Ortega's government has cracked down further on the freedom of the clergy and the press. "People have come to know the real nature of that regime, and there's more support now to try to correct it," insisted an aide to Chief of Staff Donald Regan.

That view was challenged by Democratic Congressman Michael Barnes, chairman of the key House subcommittee on aid to Latin America. "The Administration is going to have a very tough fight on its hands on lethal aid," he said. He noted that the nations involved in the Contadora process (Mexico, Venezuela, Colombia and Panama) have renewed their efforts to seek a regional solution to the conflict in Nicaragua. At the same time, the Gramm- Rudman deficit-reduction plan will require cutbacks in foreign-aid appropriations; any increase to the contras could be at the expense of other nations.

Covert American aid to the anti-Communist rebels in Afghanistan, which amounts to a reported $470 million this year, has little opposition in Congress. But there is much resistance to getting the U.S. involved in Angola, where a Marxist government is being opposed by the UNITA troops of Jonas Savimbi. He is expected to get a warm reception at a visit to the White House this week. The State Department, as well as many Congressmen, remains opposed to any open U.S. aid to the rebels. The drawbacks: it could link the U.S. to the government of South Africa, which has been covertly allied with Savimbi, and scuttle efforts to force Cuba to remove the 30,000 troops it has in Angola.

With reporting by David Beckwith and David Halevy/Washington