A Restrained Show of Force

By Richard Stengel

Just after dawn last Friday, 800 American soldiers, their faces stained brown and green with camouflage paint, parachuted onto a dry cow pasture in central Honduras. The 82nd Airborne Division paratroopers formed a defensive ^ perimeter, crouching in combat positions. But instead of an enemy force, they faced an army of photographers and cameramen -- a fitting confrontation for a troop deployment that was more media event than military action.

The 3,200 combat soldiers dispatched to Honduras last week first pitched their tents at Palmerola air base, more than 100 miles from the contra sanctuaries in Honduras that were the target of an incursion by Sandinista troops. The Sandinista assault, grandiloquently characterized by the Reagan Administration as an "invasion," had prompted Washington to respond with paratroopers and infantry. There was "no intention" of sending U.S. troops into combat, assured the White House. Officially, the soldiers were there for a "readiness exercise" intended to show U.S. support for the Honduran government -- a rather dubious claim, since the fighting took place in a remote, uninhabited area and posed no threat to Honduran security. The real aim was to demonstrate that the Reagan Administration was not about to abandon the embattled contras. The clear, if unspoken, message to the U.S. public: if Congress refused to fund the contras' fight against the Marxist-oriented Sandinista regime, then American boys just might have to do the job instead.

The Sandinista offensive appeared hell-bent on crippling the contras. With U.S. funding for the rebels cut off since the end of February and peace talks between the contras and the Sandinistas scheduled to resume on March 21, Nicaraguan President Daniel Ortega Saavedra saw his chance to wound his opponents badly before they got to the negotiating table. For weeks the U.S. had been monitoring a Sandinista buildup in the Bocay Valley in northern Nicaragua. But when the attacks began on March 10, they were even larger than expected. The Nicaraguan strategy was to destroy the contra bases along the Coco River, which separates Honduras from Nicaragua, and to capture a vital depot on the Honduran side of the border. The stockpile contains an estimated 300 tons of supplies that the CIA had flown into the area before the Feb. 29 funding cutoff. Without those arms and provisions, the contras' ability to wage warfare would be virtually nonexistent.

On Wednesday morning Nicaraguan troops were detected crossing the border into Honduras to attack rebel bases there. White House officials immediately responded by suggesting to Honduran President Jose Azcona Hoyo an American "show of support" that would stop short of a combat role. On Wednesday evening Ambassador to Honduras Everett Briggs relayed a letter from Azcona to the White House requesting assistance. The letter did not specifically mention troops, but Azcona later confirmed in a news conference that he had orally asked for this option. Reagan then gave the go-ahead to send four battalions -- two each from the 82nd Airborne, based at Fort Bragg, N.C., and the 7th Infantry Division, based at Fort Ord, Calif.

News of the deployment provoked sharp reactions. Ortega as well as Administration critics continued to charge that Azcona had been browbeaten into accepting the troops. Antiwar demonstrators took to the streets in Washington, Chicago and San Francisco. Many Congressmen responded with skepticism, as though they had seen it all before -- and in fact they had. In March 1986, after the House rejected Reagan's contra-aid package, the Sandinistas attacked rebel bases along the Honduran border. Denouncing that "invasion," the Administration reacted by using U.S. helicopters to ferry Honduran troops to the combat zone. Later the White House won a $100 million aid package for the contras.

The precedent prompted charges that the Administration acted last week with the same goal in mind. Said Democratic Representative Louis Stokes of Ohio: "They want lethal aid, and this situation provided the basis for making that request." It was also true that the Sandinistas had repeated their strange propensity to push the U.S. Congress whenever it grows weary of supporting the contras. Sure enough, a bipartisan group of Senators last week submitted a $48 million contra-aid proposal, including some $2.5 million for arms. Passage, however, remains uncertain.

By week's end the Sandinistas seemed to be withdrawing. On Thursday and again on Saturday, Honduran air force pilots flying F-5 jets and Super Mysteres bombed Nicaraguan targets near the border. There was little damage, but the point was explosive enough: the Hondurans, with U.S. support and prodding, were willing to defend the contras. The U.S. rescue mission, for the moment, seems to have saved the rebels from what might have been near military extinction. But the Sandinista sweep succeeded in weakening the rebels, and their long-range future appears far from assured.

With reporting by Ricardo Chavira/Washington and Wilson Ring/Tegucigalpa