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Shultz Reports Hesitance on Cambodia Aid : He Says ‘Changeable’ Congress Might Later Act to Scuttle Program

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Times Staff Writers

The Reagan Administration is resisting congressional moves to give military aid to non-Communist Cambodian rebels, Secretary of State George P. Shultz said Wednesday, because it fears Congress might suddenly change its mind and scuttle the program, to the long-term detriment of U.S. interests.

Asked about his lukewarm attitude toward the House vote Tuesday to provide $5 million for such military aid, Shultz expressed the clearest rationale so far for the Administration’s reluctance.

“Congress is a very changeable operation,” said the secretary of state, who is here in connection with the meeting of the Assn. of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN). “They’re in favor of something one time, then things happen and they change their mind, and all of a sudden you’ve got a program that’s derailed. . . . That’s very disruptive.”

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A senior State Department official added later: “We have an unhappy history of people who have come to depend on U.S. help and then been abandoned.”

The Administration does not want to add the Cambodian rebels to that list, he indicated.

Multiyear Aid Urged

If Congress wants to start a military aid program, the official said, it should provide funds for two to four years ahead rather than just the single year.

“The impulse to make a dramatic gesture ought to be weighed against the cost” of later cancellations and consequent bitterness against the United States, he said.

Beyond congressional fickleness, however, there are additional stated and unstated reasons for the Administration’s attitudes.

Shultz said the Cambodian rebels, who are fighting Vietnamese occupation forces supporting the Heng Samrin government in Phnom Penh, receive military help from regional countries, including the members of ASEAN--Indonesia, Thailand, Malaysia, Singapore, the Philippines and Brunei. U.S. officials have said the rebels get as much weaponry as they can presently use.

The United States may also prefer to hold the threat of military support for the rebels over Hanoi’s head as a means of assuring continued cooperation on U.S. personnel missing in action from the Vietnam War. However, the Administration publicly insists that the MIAs and Cambodia are separate issues.

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Asian Criticism Feared

And though some of the ASEAN states publicly urge the United States to take a more active role in ousting the Vietnamese from Cambodia, the senior U.S. official said that every member of the group would quickly criticize the United States if it got too far ahead of ASEAN initiatives in searching for resolution of the Cambodian situation.

Shultz was also asked if it is fair for the United States to urge other nations to provide weapons for Cambodian rebels if it is reluctant to do so.

He denied that the United States is urging such military support--a denial that the senior official later corrected to say that the United States has in fact asked China to expand its aid to the non-Communist sections of the Cambodian resistance.

Shultz then added: “I recognize that people who have to fight for independence and freedom for their country have to have military equipment, but that doesn’t mean the United States always has to provide it.”

Senate Bill Preferred

U.S. officials indicated that the Senate version of the bill providing $5 million in aid for the Cambodian rebels is more likely to survive the congressional compromise process than the House version, and is more acceptable to the Administration. The Senate version would give the Administration flexibility to use the funds for either military or non-military aid.

Shultz said the U.S. aid now includes support for the Cambodian refugees, help for affected Thai villages along the border and--the biggest single item of the U.S. aid package--direct security assistance of about $100 million a year to the Thai military to protect Thailand against Vietnam.

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“This is a better role for us in the long run, more sustainable,” Shultz said, and thus more successful.

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