Some Are More Aggressively Pro-Defense and Anti-Communist : House Democrats Seeking to Project a Tougher Image

House Armed Services Committee Chairman Les Aspin (D-Wis.) recently got a confidential memo from an aide cautioning him not to slash MX missile funding because it might make Democrats “look too weak.”

The advice, which Aspin generally followed in guiding a $292-billion military spending package through the House last week, reflects a concerted effort on the part of some leading Democrats in Congress to fashion a tougher image for their party--an image that is more aggressively pro-defense and anti-communist.

The results have been plainly visible in the last few weeks as the Democratic-controlled House took a series of highly uncharacteristic actions: It reversed itself and allowed the production of long-banned chemical weapons. It brushed aside a previous decision and voted aid to the Nicaraguan rebels. And, while setting some limits, it spelled out for the first time a set of circumstances under which President Reagan should send U.S. combat troops into Central America.

Although only one of these measures had the expressed backing of the party leadership, none could have passed without support from Democratic moderates such as Aspin, who believe their party has earned itself a politically damaging reputation by consistently opposing Reagan on such issues.

Rep. Tony Coelho (D-Merced), chairman of the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee, heartily endorses the trend toward toughness--even though his own votes have not taken on the same hard-line flavor as Aspin’s. “What we’re trying to do is point out all the things we’re for,” Coelho said. “The big question is: Can we turn our image around by November, 1988?”

During consideration of the defense authorization bill, which cleared the House last week, Aspin emphasized that members of his party favor more weapons systems than they oppose. “Democrats ought to be for something,” he said repeatedly during the two weeks of deliberations.

Although House Democrats cut funding for Reagan’s “Star Wars” missile defense system, restricted deployment of MX missiles to 40 and halted testing of anti-satellite weapons, they also passed amendments exceeding the President’s funding request for the Midgetman missile and conventional forces.

On a parallel track, Rep. Stephen J. Solarz (D-N.Y.), a member of the House Foreign Affairs Committee, has been advocating a new Democratic foreign policy line. His message: “We need to have a more tough-minded approach to the Soviet Union and communism if we are going to maintain our credibility with the American people.”

Solarz, who outlined his views in a recent speech to the Americans for Democratic Action, said his recommendations have been welcomed by many of his fellow Democrats. He described the development as “the expression of an emerging consensus within our party.”

Solarz has scored his most visible success in winning support for U.S. aid to the non-communist insurgency in Cambodia. The President originally opposed it, but Administration officials dropped their opposition in response to Democratic pressure.

Liberals complain that Solarz and like-minded Democrats have caved in to the pressure created by Reagan for a bloated military and a belligerent foreign policy.

“A number of my Democratic colleagues have decided that, if we’re not voting with the Administration on these issues, we’ll be viewed as weak,” said Rep. Ronald V. Dellums (D-Berkeley). “Their so-called Democratic strategy is to slide closer to Ronald Reagan and not to embrace him with two arms but to embrace him with just one arm.”

Democrats who advocate a tougher line acknowledge the risk that Reagan will get the credit--undeserved, in Aspin’s view--for turning them around. “There is a tendency to overread Reagan into all of this,” Aspin said.

But Solarz, arguing that “our party need not and should not be an echo chamber for President Reagan’s foreign policy,” conceded that many House Democrats are bending further in Reagan’s direction than he would like. He called recent House votes for chemical warfare and aid to the Nicaraguan rebels “a reflection of the trend--even though it goes beyond my views.”

While the House Democratic leadership staunchly opposed aid to the Nicaraguan rebels, Rep. Dave McCurdy (D-Okla.), who is seen as a rising young star on the Democratic side of the aisle, persuaded many other Democrats to vote in favor of a $27-million aid package.

Likewise, it was another Democrat, Ike Skelton of Missouri, who sponsored the successful amendment providing $126 million for the production of binary chemical weapons--something that the Reagan Administration has been seeking without success since 1982. The House leadership opposed the Skelton amendment; Aspin supported it.

House Democratic leaders themselves lined up strongly behind another get-tough amendment that passed last Thursday. That measure, outlining the circumstances under which Congress would approve the commitment of U.S. troops to Nicaragua, was condemned by liberals as the Central American equivalent of the 1964 Gulf of Tonkin resolution, which led to increased U.S. military involvement in Vietnam.

Although Majority Whip Thomas S. Foley (D-Wash.) authored the amendment with the intention of limiting Reagan’s options in Central America, he continued to speak in favor of it even after Republicans amended it to give Reagan much more leeway. He persuaded 213 other Democrats to do the same.

Not all Democratic initiatives have a hard-line cast. In the future, those same House Democrats are planning to become more aggressive in encouraging the President to negotiate an arms control agreement with the Soviet Union, and even now they are claiming credit for Reagan’s decision to continue to abide by the terms of SALT II.

And when Congress returns on July 8 from its current recess, Solarz said he intends to sponsor a resolution calling on the President to agree to limit development of “Star Wars,” a space-based missile defense system, in exchange for reductions in Soviet land-based missiles.

In addition, Aspin is making plans for a Democratic initiative to reform the Pentagon’s procurement system. “We could do a lot better as Democrats exposing the waste,” he said.

So far, Republicans appear to welcome the movement among Democrats toward a generally harder defense line. Minority Whip Trent Lott (R-Miss.) remarked last week that Aspin had proved to be an ally of the Republicans on some issues.

Some Republicans, however, are concerned that the Democrats might succeed in developing a new image. “The White House still thinks the Democrats are in disarray,” a GOP aide said. “But at least on defense policy, they are succeeding in putting together their own agenda.”