The President in Europe : Reagan Unable to Sway Spain on Nicaragua

President Reagan ran into solid Spanish opposition to his anti-Nicaragua policies Tuesday despite Administration warnings that Nicaragua is rapidly becoming a Soviet-style government that threatens U.S. security interests.

Reagan defended his policies during almost three hours of meetings with Socialist Prime Minister Felipe Gonzalez, but U.S. and Spanish officials agreed afterward that Spain remains opposed to both Reagan’s trade embargo against Nicaragua and his policy of aiding the country’s rightist rebels in their efforts to overthrow the leftist Sandinista government.

View on Contra Aid

Meanwhile, Reagan and officials accompanying him on a state visit here seem to believe that Congress may reconsider its rejection of aid to the contras, as the rebels are called, in light of Nicaraguan President Daniel Ortega’s recent visit to Moscow, where he received a pledge of economic aid from Soviet leader Mikhail S. Gorbachev.

The President himself told reporters that Ortega’s trip to Moscow had caused some congressmen who voted against the $14 million in aid he had requested for the contras to “reconsider their position.”

“I think there are some people having second thoughts and discovering they have been victims of a disinformation campaign, as perhaps even some of you present have been,” Reagan told a small pool of reporters covering his visit Tuesday with King Juan Carlos I at the Pardo Palace.

Secretary of State George P. Shultz said he would like to see Congress vote on the aid package again. After Reagan returns to Washington on Friday, Shultz said, Administration officials will discuss the matter and try to arrive at some strategy for reviving the aid package.

Shultz said he found it “very interesting” that House Speaker Thomas P. (Tip) O’Neill Jr. (D-Mass.) had said Ortega’s trip “embarrassed” many members who voted against the package of aid to the contras.

But in Washington on Tuesday, O’Neill emphasized that he has not altered his opposition to the program of aid to the contras. Ortega’s visit to Moscow, O’Neill said “does not justify an American attempt to overthrow the government of Nicaragua” and “does not justify aid to the contras.”

Due in Madrid

Ortega, who has been visiting Eastern European countries since his session with Gorbachev, is expected to stop in Madrid to see Spanish authorities while en route to Nicaragua at the end of the week, probably Saturday, according to Spanish sources.

Spain’s opposition to U.S. policy in Nicaragua also was discussed during meetings between Shultz and Foreign Minister Fernando Moran. Later, Shultz suggested that the opposition is based on a “difference in analysis” of the situation in Nicaragua.

It is clear to the United States, Shultz said, “that the (Sandinista) comandantes are moving Nicaragua as rapidly as they can toward a Soviet-style government.” He said it is his impression that while Spanish authorities hold the same view, they believe “there’s still some hope” that the Sandinistas will not impose Soviet-type rule.

In fact, Moran later told reporters that he agrees that Nicaragua is sliding toward authoritarianism, but added, “We differ in that Spain believes the slide can be prevented and that trying to isolate them would only drive them toward authoritarianism.”

‘Structural’ Problem

Moran said that while the United States sees Nicaragua as a “global” problem, Spain sees it as a “structural” problem, which apparently means viewing the problem as having its roots in regional historical, political and economic causes rather than in Soviet expansionism.

In separate press briefings, Moran and Shultz agreed that the United States and Spain had similar goals in Central America.

But Moran repeatedly underscored the word announced in referring to the U.S. goals and to U.S. support for the Contadora process, proposed by Mexico, Panama, Colombia, and Venezuela to solve the Nicaragua problem. His emphasis was taken to indicate doubt about how seriously the United States is committed to the Contadora effort.

Under the Contadora process--which the Reagan Administration supports on the one hand while backing the contras’ attempts to overthrow the Nicaraguan government on the other--peace negotiations involve all five Central American countries of Nicaragua, Honduras, Guatemala, El Salvador and Costa Rica. The goal under the process is to negotiate a military balance among the countries and provide guarantees of some form of democracy in each country.

U.S. and Spanish officials also discussed Spain’s interest in reducing the number of U.S. military personnel based in this country, and Shultz later said there “is going to be a broad review and discussion” of the matter before the present treaty with Spain expires in 1988. The United States has had military personnel based here under a series of treaties since 1953.

The discussion will be at the diplomatic level “before anybody tables anything that’s remotely formal,” Shultz said, but negotiations will be held long before the treaty’s expiration date.

12,500 at Bases

The United States has a total of about 12,500 military personnel in Spain based at three Air Force bases and one Navy base. There have been recurrent reports in the Spanish press that Spain would like to close at least two of the Air Force bases.

During Reagan’s visit here, both he and Shultz sought to persuade Spain to participate in the President’s Strategic Defense Initiative (“Star Wars”) program to provide a space-based defense against nuclear missiles, but Spanish authorities were noncommittal.