Senate Approves but House Rejects Funds for Contras

The Democratic-controlled House on Tuesday night defeated President Reagan’s request for $14 million in aid for Nicaraguan rebels after a dramatic last-minute concession by the President won him a face-saving affirmative vote in the Senate.

The House voted 248 to 180 on the same resolution to reject the President’s proposal that the CIA provide direct aid to the rebels, known as contras . Forty Republicans joined 208 Democrats in voting against it.

House Democrats condemned the proposal as a “Gulf of Tonkin resolution for Central America”--a reference to the 1964 resolution that opened the way for U.S. military involvement in Vietnam.

“The margin was bigger than we expected,” said House Speaker Thomas P. (Tip) O’Neill Jr. (D-Mass.). “It sends a message to the President: They don’t want our boys down there. That’s what its all about.”

Republicans See Victory

Although the House vote effectively deprived the Administration of the money it has been seeking, Republicans insisted that the President won a major political and moral victory by prevailing in the Senate by a vote of 53 to 46. Ten Democrats voted with the Republicans in the Senate, while nine GOP senators voted against Reagan.

The White House issued a statement declaring: “Tonight the Senate cast a historic vote--for freedom and democracy in Central America. A clear majority has spoken in favor of a consistent and effective policy that is true both to our principles and to our interests.”

How the issue ultimately will be resolved was unclear. Senate Foreign Relations Committee Chairman Richard G. Lugar (R-Ind.) said that Reagan does not intend to be deterred by the House defeat.

“The President is going to continue to support the contras, whatever the votes are here today,” Lugar said.

What turned the tide for Reagan in the Senate was a three-page letter he sent to Congress, just an hour before the Senate vote, in which he backed down on a key provision of his earlier proposal--his demand that the contra aid be used as leverage to bring the Nicaraguan government into immediate peace negotiations with the rebels.

Instead, the President agreed to resume bilateral talks with the Sandinista regime in Managua, something he previously had opposed. He said he would use the bilateral talks to press for a cease-fire in the region and for church-mediated negotiations between the rebels and the Sandinistas.

The Democrats’ demand for bilateral talks between the United States and Nicaragua had been the key sticking point in two days of fruitless efforts to forge a bipartisan compromise. Those discussions broke down earlier Tuesday.

Reagan also promised to consider economic sanctions against Nicaragua and explicitly condemned atrocities reportedly carried out by both sides in the conflict.

His letter restated an earlier pledge to limit the money to humanitarian assistance--”for food, medicine, clothing and other assistance for their well-being and not for arms, ammunition and weapons of war.”

The President stopped short of agreeing to the Democrats’ desire that the money be administered by some agency other than the CIA. He pledged instead to establish detailed procedures to make certain that the money would not be misappropriated for arms or otherwise misused.

“The President has come a long way, but in the process we continue to assure the contras that they are going to get some aid,” said Senate Majority Leader Bob Dole (R-Kan.). He added that some Republicans thought that Reagan had gone “too far” and had “almost adopted a Democratic package.”

4 Key Votes Lost

The vote in the Senate represented a loss to the Administration of four votes since that chamber last considered the issue in October, 1984. Sens. John H. Chafee (R-R.I.), Dennis DeConcini (D-Ariz.), Daniel J. Evans (R-Wash.) and Slade Gorton (R-Wash.), who had generally voted in favor of contra aid in the past, voted against the proposal on Tuesday.

But Reagan’s concessions did not change the outcome in the House, where Democratic leaders were looking for their own political victory.

Today, the House is expected to adopt a Democratic bill that would provide no direct aid to the contras but would instead give $10 million to the United Nations and the Red Cross to help Nicaraguan refugees and $4 million to encourage regional peace talks.

Reagan’s last-minute concessions came as a surprise to the Democrats. Senate Minority Leader Robert C. Byrd (D-W.Va.) criticized the President for coming in with a compromise at the “11th hour and the 59th minute.” He added, “That’s no way to legislate, in my judgment.”

Republican leaders said that some wavering GOP senators were persuaded to vote with the President to show their disapproval of a move by freshman Sens. Tom Harkin (D-Iowa) and John Kerry (D-Mass.), who returned from Nicaragua last weekend with a “peace offer” from the Sandinista leaders that was promptly rejected by the President.

Trip Enraged GOP

“Most Republicans were absolutely enraged with the Kerry-Harkin mission,” Lugar said. “That was absolutely the last straw. What we’re saying is, the President is still in charge of foreign policy.”

Moderate Democrats complained privately that the Harkin-Kerry trip made their party look pro-Sandinista. During a daylong debate in the House, several Democrats carefully avoided expressing support for the Sandinistas, even as they denounced the President’s proposal to fund the contras.

“I hold no brief for the Sandinista government,” said Rep. Edward J. Markey (D-Mass.), “but neither do I hold with the wild statements that have been coming out of the White House and other quarters.”

Similarly, California Rep. Robert T. Matsui (D-Sacramento) said he opposes the “repressive and anti-democratic nature” of the Sandinistas, but he asserted that Administration policies “continue to backfire, galvanizing the Nicaraguan people against the United States.”

Anti-American Sentiment

Matsui and other Democrats said that funding the contras would create anti-American sentiment not only in Nicaragua but also throughout the region. Republicans loyal to the President fought to convince their colleagues that funding the contras is a matter of national security and the only way to pressure the Sandinistas into negotiating for peace.

Rep. Henry J. Hyde (R-Ill.) likened the refusal to finance the contras to “a neighbor seeing a crime on the street and pulling the shade. We don’t want to get involved.”

The issue of U.S. security “cannot wait until we have a fight at our own borders,” declared California Rep. Robert J. Lagomarsino (R-Ojai).

However, the view of Rep. David E. Bonior (D-Mich.) prevailed in the House. He called the Administration policy “neither just nor justifiable” and called on the House to vote against a policy for which the Administration has had to “fumble for a rationale.”