Democrats Offer Reagan Contra Aid Compromise : 11th-Hour Attempt to Heal Split

President Reagan and about a dozen senators met today in an 11th-hour effort to reach a compromise on the type of aid the United States should provide to contra guerrillas fighting the leftist government in Nicaragua.

With showdown votes scheduled in the House and Senate on Tuesday, a small group of Senate Democrats reached agreement on a proposed compromise, then traveled to the White House to seek the President’s concurrence.

Shortly before the daylong White House discussions began, Senate Minority Leader Robert C. Byrd Jr. (D-W.Va.) said the Democrats “are willing to compromise and we hope the President is willing, too.”

Republicans Present

Later, White House spokesman Larry Speakes said some Republican senators had joined the meeting. Reagan attended initially, and then turned the negotiations over to senior aides.

At issue in the Congress is whether the United States should provide direct or indirect help to rightist rebels seeking to oust a government with which the United States has continuing trade and diplomatic relations.

For the moment, the initiative on finding an alternative to Reagan’s proposal was in the hands of the politically diverse group of Senate Democrats led by Byrd and J. Bennett Johnston of Louisiana. Others at the White House were Patrick J. Leahy of Vermont, Christopher J. Dodd of Connecticut, Daniel K. Inouye of Hawaii, John Kerry of Massachusetts and David L. Boren of Oklahoma.

Reagan Proposal

Speakes declined to say which Republicans were participating.

Under Reagan’s most recent contra aid proposal, the United States would provide $14 million in humanitarian and logistical assistance--but no direct military help--through the end of the current fiscal year Sept. 30.

Sources who spoke on condition of anonymity said the Democratic alternative included $14 million in general assistance to the Nicaraguan people; the possibility of economic sanctions against the Sandinistas if they refuse to negotiate with the contras, and some mechanism for Reagan to ask for military assistance to the contras if no progress is made toward ending the civil war.

No Contra Recognition

But the Democratic plan excluded any direct recognition of the contras as a political force in Nicaragua, the sources said--a key element in Reagan’s proposal from the White House point of view.

There was a possibility that if the negotiations broke down completely, the Senate would vote only on the President’s original $14-million proposal under which the aid would be provided as food, clothing and medicine unless after 60 days the Sandinistas refused to negotiate seriously with the rebels. At that point, Reagan could decide to turn the money into military assistance.

In the House, Democrats also put together a Nicaragua proposal under which $4 million would be spent for peacekeeping forces if there were a negotiated end to the fighting, and $10 million would be earmarked for Nicaraguan refugees.

At a speech in Indianapolis today, Secretary of State George P. Shultz termed the Democratic plan “worse than nothing.” It would, he said, turn the contras into “refugees without hope of a democratic outcome.”

“It is a green light for the regime to continue its foreign subversion without ever accepting a Contadora treaty,” Shultz said.