Don’t Abandon Contras: Reagan : He Calls House Aid Formula a ‘Surrender’

President Reagan, making an impassioned, last-minute bid Saturday to salvage his request for $14 million in aid to the Nicaraguan rebels, accused his Democratic opponents in Congress of advocating a “shameful surrender” to the Marxist-led regime in Nicaragua.

Facing almost certain defeat in House and Senate votes on the aid package Tuesday, Reagan declared in his weekly radio speech that Democrats who want to give aid to Nicaraguan refugees instead of the rebels, known as contras, are only encouraging the development of a Soviet-terrorist stronghold in Central America that will soon pose a threat to U.S. security.

The President said that terrorist supporters of Libyan President Moammar Kadafi and Iran’s supreme leader, the Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini, are already in Nicaragua, just “two hours by air from United States borders.”

Soviet Advisers Seen

He also confirmed a story that Administration officials were leaking early last week that Soviet military advisers are stationed in the combat zone in northern Nicaragua. After the President’s speech, an Administration official, speaking anonymously, said that about a dozen Soviet military people were observed at Ocotal, nine miles south of the Nicaraguan-Honduran frontier, and that “they were probably just advising rather than actually engaging in combat.”

Reagan’s speech was an unequivocal rejection of an alternative plan set forth Friday by a bipartisan group of six House members led by Reps. Michael D. Barnes (D-Md.) and Lee H. Hamilton (D-Ind.). That plan rules out any direct aid to the contras .

“Any proposal that abandons over 15,000 members of a democratic resistance to communists is not a compromise; it’s a shameful surrender,” the President said.

“If Congress ever approves such a proposal, it would hasten the consolidation of Nicaragua as a communist-terrorist arsenal. And it would give the green light to Soviet-sponsored aggression throughout the American mainland, ultimately threatening our own security.”

Responding to Reagan’s speech, Rep. James R. Jones (D-Okla.), a co-author of the Barnes-Hamilton plan, defended it as “mainstream . . . common-sense” policy--a “middle course” designed to promote peace talks in the region.

“We disagree with those in the Reagan Administration who want a hard-line military solution,” he said. “And we disagree with some in our own party who feel that we have no business at all in Nicaragua. We believe that the United States must be concerned and involved, but our involvement must respect the rule of law and the sensitivities of our neighbors.”

Christopher J. Mathews, spokesman for House Speaker Thomas (Tip) P. O’Neill Jr. (D-Mass.) also replied that the Democrats are not advocating surrender in Nicaragua. “The fact is, we cannot surrender if we’re not involved as a belligerent down there,” he said.

Although the President will meet today with a group of Senate Democrats and Republicans in an effort to work out an agreement that the leaders of both parties could accept, his radio speech indicated that chances for compromise are slim. Officials said that Reagan will not even try to resolve his differences with House members.

The President picked up few--if any--votes on Thursday when he offered to compromise by pledging that none of the $14 million in aid would be used for weaponry during the current fiscal year ending Sept. 30. Senate Republicans said the compromise also would have allowed the CIA to spend other funds to arm the contras.

Not only do Reagan’s opponents in Congress object to his providing arms to the contras, they firmly oppose any direct assistance--particularly through the CIA. Instead, the Democrats would aid Nicaraguan refugees only through the Red Cross or the United Nations.

As a result, the President described the Barnes-Hamilton plan as “a formula for turning the democratic resistance into homeless refugees.”

Reagan said that officials of the Sandinista government and their “misguided sympathizers” have been lobbying members of Congress with a “sophisticated disinformation campaign of lies and distortion.” He added that he expected an 11th-hour Sandinista peace offer to further sway sentiment in Congress.

Hours later, the Boston Globe reported that Nicaraguan leader Daniel Ortega, meeting with two U.S. senators in Managua, said that if all U.S. support for the contras were ended, he would agree to an immediate cease-fire and restoration of civil liberties.