GOP Senator Calls Reagan Nicaragua Policy Confusing

The chairman of the Senate Intelligence Committee on Tuesday criticized President Reagan’s policy on Nicaragua as confusing and inconsistent and said the United States should consider joint military action with its Central American allies against the Sandinista regime.

Sen. Dave Durenberger (R-Minn.) said Reagan’s request to Congress for renewed covert aid to Nicaraguan rebels “is at a dead end.” Instead, he called for overt pressure against the Sandinistas, saying it could include measures ranging from withdrawing diplomatic recognition and imposing economic sanctions to direct military intervention.

“Our government appears to be reacting to events, rather than carrying out a strategy with specific goals,” Durenberger complained in a speech to the National Press Club. “What we need is a comprehensive policy which can provide a road map for the future. Thus far, the Administration has failed to provide such a road map. . . . It is not clear why covert aid is the critical action on which our policy must stand or fall.

“Thus far, our rhetoric has far exceeded our actions,” he said. “If we oppose the regime in Managua, why do we buy Nicaraguan beef and bananas when Honduras could use our trade? And if we truly feel that the Sandinistas have lost their legitimacy, . . . why do we continue diplomatic relations?”

Later, answering reporters’ questions, Durenberger said he would favor breaking diplomatic and economic relations with Marxist-led Nicaragua if other Central American and South American nations would also do so. He said he would urge the Administration to talk with its allies to seek support for such a joint action.

Regional Solution Needed

“I think that’s one of the first things we’ve got to do,” he said. “What I’m saying is that it has to be in the framework of a regional solution. . . . My reading is that people in Congress would be more willing to do that than anything else.

“I don’t know that you’ve got a lot of options left,” he added.

Asked whether he would support U.S. military intervention against Nicaragua, Durenberger, a moderate Republican, replied: “I would support it on condition . . . that it is in support of regional treaty objectives, that is the Rio Treaty and the charter of the Organization of American States.” Both the treaty and the charter prohibit unilateral intervention in member states.

“I don’t think it is inevitable,” he said. “But I think we had better make it clear that it is possible.”

If Latin countries do not agree to join the United States in such joint actions, Durenberger admitted, “then you’re back to square one--which is where you are now. . . . So why the hell don’t you try it?”

Latin American Reluctance

A State Department official, asked to comment on Durenberger’s remarks, said Latin American governments have consistently shown themselves unwilling to join the United States in forcefully pressuring Nicaragua. That is “something that the Latin Americans just can’t bring themselves to do,” he said.

Durenberger said he hopes that the Administration will agree with him and decide not to press its request for $14 million in renewed CIA covert aid for the rebels, known as contras. He said Administration officials have told him that they are engaged in a major “rethinking” of their policy on Nicaragua.

Later Tuesday, however, in a Senate hearing, the Administration’s chief spokesman on Central America, Assistant Secretary of State Langhorne A. Motley, said Reagan is still committed to seeking the covert aid.

“We have spent a considerable amount of time . . . seeing if there’s some alternative way to fund the contras,” Motley told the Senate Foreign Relations Committee’s subcommittee on Latin America.

“We’ve looked at overt assistance (to the contras) at a variety of times, even before last April (when Congress cut off the CIA funding),” Motley said. “I’m still looking. I find no . . . overt mechanism that works.”

Motley said he expects Reagan to request the renewed funding some time after Congress returns from its Easter recess on April 15.