Contra Aid Negotiations Continuing : White House Staff, Senate Leaders Meet Again Today

President Reagan’s foreign policy advisers negotiated with Senate leaders at the White House all day Monday in an effort to save the Administration’s request for $14 million in aid to Nicaraguan rebels, but the two sides came to no agreement.

“We’re still not there,” Senate Majority Leader Bob Dole (R-Kan.) said after more than eight hours of talks. “We don’t have an agreement.”

Dole and Senate Minority Leader Robert C. Byrd (D-W.Va.) said they plan to meet again today to seek a compromise on the aid request, and both said they are hopeful one can be found.

However, both leaders made it clear that substantial gaps remain between Republican and Democratic positions on the issue. And another participant, Sen. Christopher J. Dodd (D-Conn.), said he will be surprised if a compromise can be worked out.

‘Some Real Problems’

“There was movement on both sides, but there are still some real problems,” Dodd said.

Democrats have opposed the Administration’s policy of military aid to the rebels, known as contras , and have proposed negotiations with the leftist Sandinista regime instead. Many Republicans have also criticized the President’s policy on a wide variety of grounds.

The issue had been scheduled to come to a head today with debates in both the Republican-controlled Senate and the Democrat-controlled House. However, some congressional aides said a move might be made to delay any vote as long as compromise talks are continuing.

During Monday’s meeting, Senate Democrats offered simply to cancel the Senate vote and to allow the President to spend $14 million from existing State Department funds for food, clothing and medical supplies for the rebels.

Reagan Reluctance

However, sources said Reagan was reluctant to give up his own proposal, which would allow the CIA to disburse $14 million to the contras for all types of military supplies except weapons and ammunition.

Participants said Reagan opened the meeting with a half-hour critique of the Democratic proposal, then left the senators with national security adviser Robert C. McFarlane and other officials.

Dole and Sen. Dave Durenberger (R-Minn.), chairman of the Senate Intelligence Committee, indicated that the President still believes strongly that the purpose of the aid should be to pressure the Sandinistas into direct negotiations with the contras--a demand the Managua regime has rejected so far.

“The Nicaraguans ought to be talking to the contras,” Dole declared.

A senior White House aide said Reagan considers such talks “indispensable.”

The Democratic proposal, meanwhile, calls for a cease-fire between the Nicaraguan government and the contras but would not require negotiations.

Dodd said the Democrats consider talks between the Sandinistas and the contras an unrealistic goal.

“I’m far more concerned about the security interests of the United States than I am about the contras,” he said. “I think the way we can make some progress is to get some direct bilateral talks going. If you put the contras in, I believe there’s no way in the world that the Sandinistas will come to those negotiations . . . at which point the deal falls apart and you haven’t moved an inch.”

Dodd said other points of conflict include whether funds would be disbursed through the CIA or some other agency and whether the aid would be strictly humanitarian or could include “non-lethal” military supplies.

‘Fast Track’ Provision

A White House senior official said both proposals include a “fast track” provision that would enable the President to return quickly to Congress to request military aid for the contras if the Sandinista government did not observe elements of the package, such as negotiating in good faith.

The President’s request and the Senate Democrats’ counterproposal were also joined by competing plans offered by House Republicans and Democrats--a total of four proposals in all.

The House Democrats’ plan would provide $10 million in humanitarian aid to Nicaraguan refugees who have fled the guerrilla war and would funnel the aid through the United Nations and the Red Cross instead of the CIA. In addition, the Democrats would allocate $4 million to fund the Contadora mediating group of Mexico, Panama, Colombia and Venezuela, which has been working on a Central American peace treaty.

Embargo on Trade

The House Republican plan would empower the Agency for International Development to spend $14 million for food, clothing and medical supplies for the contras. It also would call upon the President to impose a trade embargo on the Nicaraguan government if it refuses to negotiate a peace settlement.

At stake is a program that has become the centerpiece of the Administration’s policy in Central America. Reagan and other officials have warned that the Sandinistas are bent on spreading leftist revolution throughout the region and that only the removal of their regime can safeguard U.S. interests in the area.

Democratic leaders have said they believe that any attempts by the Sandinistas to interfere in neighboring countries could be curbed by a regional treaty. They have opposed U.S. sponsorship of the contras as intervention in Nicaragua’s internal affairs.

Congress cut off aid to the rebels last year after the Administration had spent about $80 million building them into a 16,000-man army.

An Important Moment

Secretary of State George P. Shultz said Monday that the coming vote on the contras could be “the most important moment in Congress since 1947,” when the first foreign aid to countries threatened by pro-Soviet insurgency was approved.

“We are at a pivotal moment that will help determine the future of Central America and directly affect the national security of the United States,” Shultz said. “Congress will choose whether to support the President in his determination to stop Soviet encroachment right here in our hemisphere.”

In a speech in Indianapolis, Shultz dismissed most of the alternative proposals as “phony” and specifically rejected the House Democrats’ plan as “worse than nothing.”

“The President’s proposal (for military aid) promotes peace by supporting Nicaragua’s democrats and providing incentives for the (Sandinista) comandantes to enter into a dialogue with them,” Shultz said. “This (Democratic) alternative does neither.”

Senate Republican leaders, meanwhile, were said to be upset with the President for forcing them to spend the entire day at the White House working on this issue, which they consider to be secondary to the GOP budget compromise that will come before the Senate for debate later this week. Dole has said on numerous occasions that he thinks the President should be spending more of his time lobbying for the budget.