Reagan Plans New Strategy on Contra Aid : Emphasis to Be Put on Getting Managua to Negotiating Table

The Reagan Administration has abandoned its claim that aid to Nicaraguan rebels is justified because the insurgents intercept arms shipments to El Salvador, a senior State Department official said Friday.

Instead, he said, it plans to ask Congress to renew such assistance on the grounds that military pressure is needed to force the leftist Managua regime to negotiate.

The official, speaking in an unusual high-level briefing for a small group of reporters, presented an early look at the Administration’s strategy for winning new covert aid to the rebels, known as contras .

‘Shifted the Emphasis’

“We have shifted the emphasis,” he said. He indicated that the Administration believes that moderate Democrats may back funding for the rebels if it is presented as a means of expediting peace talks in the area, rather than as a secret war against the Sandinista regime.

Both the State Department official and a White House official who spoke to reporters in Santa Barbara, where President Reagan is on vacation, said the Administration is continuing to seek a basic change in the domestic and foreign policies of the Sandinistas.

“There is a widespread desire on the (Capitol) Hill to find some way to help the contras,” the State Department official said. “Opinion on the Hill has changed on the contras.”

A Way to Change Sides

The Administration’s problem, he said, is to find a way in which Democrats who have publicly opposed aid to the rebels can now change sides without admitting to a reversal of principle.

A Democratic congressional aide who has been marshaling opposition to aid to the contras agreed that there has been a subtle shift in sentiment.

“The Sandinistas have succeeded in losing all their friends up here,” he said. “There are probably some votes moving toward the Administration. But I still don’t see any way they can get a majority.”

Congress cut off the contras’ funding last year after disclosures that, as part of the program, the CIA had mined Nicaragua’s harbors and engaged in other military operations. The Administration is asking Congress to approve at least $14 million in new funding for the rebels.

The State Department official argued that the Sandinistas have been flexible only when they have felt military pressure from the contras, who are based in Honduras and Costa Rica.

‘Can Chart Willingness’

“You can almost chart the Nicaraguan willingness to negotiate on the basis of the strength of the contras,” he said.

He said the U.S. objective is to foster “a process of reconciliation” between the Managua regime and the rebels. Such a process, he said, requires more than the amnesty the Sandinistas have already offered; it must include a reorganization of Nicaragua’s domestic political system to allow the rebels to participate in government.

The official said the Administration no longer plans to stress the rebels’ ability to intercept Nicaraguan shipments of arms and other military supplies to leftist guerrillas in El Salvador. That was the rationale the CIA used to win congressional approval for covert funding when the program was originally presented in 1981, although the Administration later amended the rationale to one of blocking Nicaraguan subversion in a broader sense.

A Lesson in Vietnam

“The objective was never interdiction as such,” another State Department official said. “There’s no such thing as an interdiction program. You can’t do it. We learned that in Vietnam. . . .The agency never should have used that word. It was a mistake from the start.”

Instead, the officials said, aiding the contras was intended to force the Sandinistas to divert weapons that might otherwise have been sent to the Salvadoran guerrillas.

The senior State Department official said the Administration is considering some changes in the method of funding the contras but did not indicate that any decision is imminent.

“Some people talk about doing it openly, some people talk about non-lethal only, some talk about private financing,” he said. “These are all interesting ideas--but all have some drawbacks.”

The official also said he does not expect the Administration to seek a vote on aid to the contras before mid-March.

Bid to Shift Votes

Meanwhile, the Administration plans to step up its campaign to change congressional votes on the Nicaraguan issue, beginning with President Reagan’s weekly radio address today and including a speech by Secretary of State George P. Shultz next Friday.

“Why shouldn’t we support them? You think we should allow another Cuba in the middle of Central America?” asked the White House official.

The State Department official said the Administration is studying a recent flurry of interviews given by Cuban President Fidel Castro and is ready to consider “a step-by-step approach” to improve relations. He said, though, that he remains “extremely skeptical.”