Specter of Vietnam Hangs Over Debate : Contra Aid Votes Likely to Define U.S. Latin Policy

To President Reagan, the issue is “one of the greatest moral challenges in postwar history.” To House Speaker Thomas P. (Tip) O’Neill Jr. (D-Mass.), the President’s proposal is “a dirty trick” aimed at sneaking U.S. troops into a land war in Central America.

In the emotional debate over Reagan’s request for aid to the rebels fighting Nicaragua’s Marxist-led government, only one point wins quick agreement: The series of votes beginning this week in the Senate and House will be a watershed in U.S. policy toward Central America.

On the face of it, Reagan is not asking for much: $14 million in renewed aid to the rebels, known as contras , who received more than $80 million in U.S. help until Congress cut off the funds last year. The amount sought this year is so modest that Administration officials readily dismiss it, in the words of one senior aide, as “almost trivial.”

Instead, the passions spring from fundamental questions about U.S. policy in Central America--and the ever-present shadow of America’s defeat a decade ago in Vietnam.

“It is not simply a matter of the $14 million before the Congress that is the issue,” Reagan said at a banquet to raise funds for Nicaraguan refugees Monday evening. “The greater issue is one of the United States trying to help people who have had a Communist tyranny imposed on them by force, deception and fraud.”

Rep. Michael D. Barnes (D-Md.), a key opponent, poses the same issue in different terms. “The basic question,” he said, “is whether the United States should be supporting groups that are attempting to overthrow a government with which we are not at war. Are there better ways to achieve the goals we all have--nonintervention and democracy--than by supporting those groups?”

President Reagan and his aides warn that a no vote on the $14 million would result in the slow collapse of the contras, allow the Sandinistas who govern Nicaragua to promote Marxist revolution throughout Central America and eventually pose a direct threat to the security of the United States.

Democrats charge that a yes vote would constitute a new Gulf of Tonkin resolution committing the United States to a war with no clear end, just as the Congressional vote in 1964 endorsed President Lyndon B. Johnson’s escalation in Vietnam.

Both predictions are probably exaggerated. Whether Reagan wins the $14 million or not, aides say, he will attempt to maintain pressure against the Sandinistas without using U.S. troops. But Congress’ action over the next two weeks will determine what form that pressure can take and may decide whether Reagan’s now-inconclusive policy in Central America becomes a success or a costly failure.

“If it’s a yes vote, I think the President will see it as a green light to jump in with both feet and escalate,” said Barnes. “If the President loses, it will force him to reassess his whole approach.

“In that sense, it will be a watershed.”

Formal congressional action is scheduled to begin Thursday, when the Senate Appropriations Committee considers Reagan’s aid request. The full Senate is expected to vote next Tuesday, and the House must act by April 30.

Aid Considered ‘Covert’

Almost forgotten in the highly public debate over Reagan’s request is the fact that the Administration’s support of the contras was once one of the most jealously guarded secrets of the CIA. Legally, officials say, the program is still considered “covert” because open support could constitute an act of war.

The President and his Democratic critics agree on a few propositions about Nicaragua. Both say the Sandinistas have gone too far in allying themselves with the Soviet Union and Cuba, imposing a Marxist-style authoritarian regime, building the largest military force in Central America and supporting leftist movements in neighboring countries.

Where they disagree is on how acute the Nicaraguan threat is, whether the United States can live with the Sandinista regime and whether aid to the contras is the proper means to reach American goals.

Reagan included the core of his case in his formal request to Congress, released Tuesday, for the $14 million.

“The basic problem of Central America remains unaltered,” he said. “A dedicated Marxist-Leninist regime in Nicaragua, armed and backed forcefully by Cuba, the Soviet Union and its allies, bent on a massive weapons acquisition program and continuing active support for armed insurrection and subversion in neighboring countries, threatens the stability of democratic governments and fundamental U.S. interests in Central America.”

Sandinistas Must Go

Because of the Sandinistas’ intransigence, Reagan said in February, their authoritarian regime must be “removed . . . in the sense of its present structure.” The United States does not care whether that change occurs by a contra military victory, an internal coup d’etat or a negotiated transition to democracy, Administration officials say.

But the only way to ensure that it does occur, they argue, is to support the armed rebellion of the contras--”the moral equals of our Founding Fathers,” in Reagan’s words.

“If pressure is taken away, the Sandinistas will have no reason to compromise,” said Assistant Secretary of State Langhorne A. Motley. “People and nations do not move to the negotiating table because it’s a nice piece of furniture.”

Democrats, arguing that the Sandinista threat can be contained through a regional agreement, call Reagan’s determination to remove the regime unnecessary and unwarranted.

“As I see it,” Rep. Lee H. Hamilton (D-Ind.), chairman of the House Intelligence Committee, said recently, “the heart of our policy should be the negotiation of an agreement with the Sandinistas, the key provision of which would be our promise of ‘live and let live’ in exchange for Sandinista concessions in important areas of their foreign policy.

“We would insist that the Sandinistas expel foreign military advisers, keep all foreign military bases and modern offensive weapons out of their country and stop exporting revolution and trafficking in arms. In return, we would abandon our efforts to interfere in their internal affairs or change their form of government.”

Intervention Called Wrong

Democratic leaders in Congress argue that intervening to alter the Sandinistas’ regime is wrong even if it might lead to more democracy. The contras, led partly by former officers of Nicaragua’s discredited prerevolutionary regime, are far from the “freedom fighters” Reagan calls them, they say. Three years of CIA support for the contras accomplished little, in this view, and renewed U.S. funding would achieve no more.

Even some Republicans agree on the last point. “It’s at a dead end,” complained Sen. Dave Durenberger (R-Minn.), chairman of the Senate Intelligence Committee. “What we need is a comprehensive policy. . . . It is not clear why covert aid is the critical action on which our policy must stand or fall.”

If pressure is needed, Durenberger and some Democrats have said, the United States can withdraw diplomatic recognition from the Sandinista regime, cut off trade and ask for joint sanctions from the Organization of American States.

Administration officials accuse the opposition of underestimating the Sandinistas’ fervor to spread their brand of revolution throughout Central America. “Those proposals get pretty fuzzy,” said Fred C. Ikle, under secretary of defense for policy. “The Sandinistas aren’t going to kick the Cubans out just to sell bananas to us.”

Ikle added: “If the Sandinistas are not under pressure from the opposition, it’s very unlikely that they’re going to depart from their path . . . . They’re not going to make a deal which they will keep. They may make one, but they won’t keep it.”

U.S. Troop Role Seen

Without the contras, Ikle warned, the United States may eventually face the choice of using its own troops to intervene against the Sandinistas--”and the Democratic opposition in Congress . . . will have to answer for it.”

Barnes replied: “Let’s give negotiations a chance. We haven’t really tried them yet.”

The covert program, begun in 1981 as a small-scale effort to deter the Sandinistas from shipping arms to leftists in neighboring El Salvador, quickly mushroomed into a major operation as some CIA officials reported that the contras had a real chance to topple the Managua regime.

Their estimates now appear to be wrong--but only after the United States had sent in frogmen to blow up bridges, speedboats to mine harbors and U.S.-piloted helicopters to protect the sabotage missions. And that escalating U.S. involvement in the war, coupled with CIA Director William J. Casey’s unwillingness to keep Congress fully informed, prompted the Democratic-led House to block any further aid to the contras last spring.

Even Administration officials now acknowledge that the secret war waged by the CIA from 1981 until 1984 was a failure and that a new approach should take its place. But they disagree on what that approach should be.

Patient Diplomacy Urged

Some State Department officials have argued for more patient diplomacy to line up other Latin American countries against the Sandinistas and explore the possibilities of a negotiated settlement. Ikle and other “hard-liners” have called for a more confrontational approach, including economic sanctions and a withdrawal of diplomatic recognition, sources say.

Some of those measures probably will be adopted no matter how Congress votes, officials said.

“It will be a mix of several things,” a senior official said Tuesday. “But precisely what the mix is depends partly on what happens in Congress.”

If Congress approves the President’s request, Ikle said, “it will give new confidence to the opposition to the Sandinistas. It may set in motion a process in Managua that would really lead to a change in the nature of the regime. But it may not, of course, so the struggle of the opposition will continue.”

Defeat in Congress of the $14-million request, Administration officials say, would prompt no scaling-down of Reagan’s ambitious goals for Central America. “We would just look at new ways to achieve what we’re already trying to do,” another senior State Department official said.

Ikle said bluntly: “If we cannot give aid long-term to the resistance in Nicaragua, the resistance will be destroyed. The consolidation of the Leninist types in the regime will accelerate. . . . The predictable sequel comes a year or two later--namely, the stirring up of an insurgency in Honduras.”

A State Department official added that the United States would have to augment its aid to Nicaragua’s neighbors. “That would require a steady commitment of resources--something like $500 million to $1 billion in additional resources a year, indefinitely,” he said. “And that’s on top of the current $1 billion we’re spending.”

“If this is voted down,” said Sen. Richard G. Luger (R-Ind.), chairman of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, “this will not be the end of the argument.”

As for the contras, officials say, Reagan believes he has made a moral commitment to their cause. “We’re not going to quit and walk away from them,” the President vowed on April 4, “no matter what happens.”