Sen. Helms Holding China Post Hostage in Birth Control Fight

Sen. Jesse Helms (R-N.C.), an expert at legislative pressure tactics, is threatening to lead a filibuster against President Reagan’s nominee for ambassador to China unless the Administration pledges in writing that no U.S. funds will go to any organization that supports “coercive abortion or involuntary sterilization.”

The nomination of Winston Lord, Reagan’s choice for the Peking post, was approved by a 16-1 vote of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, with only Helms voting against it. But since it went on the Senate calendar Oct. 1, the ultraconservative North Carolinian’s stand has blocked consideration of the nomination by the full Senate.

Senate leaders, striving to get important appropriations and budget legislation passed in this waning session, want to avoid a Helms-led filibuster. Last summer, Helms and nine conservative colleagues blocked consideration of 29 State Department nominations for a month, until Secretary of State George P. Shultz agreed not to replace six conservative political appointees with career Foreign Service officers.

Confirmation at Stake

White House spokesman Larry Speakes said Friday that the Administration is “very interested” in the confirmation of Lord, who was a top aide to Henry A. Kissinger when the latter was national security adviser to former President Richard M. Nixon and later headed the State Department’s policy planning staff.

Speakes said that the White House “will be carrying out some conversations with Sen. Helms” but denied that Reagan had spoken directly with the senator.

To a question of whether any thought had been given to adjusting U.S. policy in the area of Helms’ concern, Speakes answered a flat no.

That concern is focused on an amendment, sponsored by Rep. Jack Kemp (R-N.Y.), to legislation allotting $36 million in fiscal 1985 to the United Nations Fund for Population Activities, and in effect reallocating an additional $10 million initially earmarked for China. The law requires the Agency for International Development to withhold funds if the U.N. agency is found to “support or participate in the management of a program of coercive abortion or involuntary sterilization.”

AID funds for China were diverted after a finding that it used coercion to prevent couples from having more than one child. But Helms seeks a firmer guarantee. Government lawyers have advised AID that it can support the U.N. effort in fiscal 1986 if China actually halts coercive abortion and sterilization, or if the United Nations alters its program radically.

Meanwhile, AID is currently spending $290 million to promote voluntary family planning in developing nations.