Reagan Seen Ready to Aid Angola Rebels

The Reagan Administration is moving toward a decision to provide both overt and covert aid to rebels fighting Angola’s Marxist government, congressional sources said Friday.

In a policy switch, President Reagan plans to support a House bill to send $27 million in non-military aid to the South African-backed guerrillas, the sources said.

At the same time, they said, the White House is preparing for a decision on covert military aid to the rebels--a proposal the Administration has been actively considering since Congress repealed a prohibition against funding the rebels in July.

Administration and congressional sources said there appears to be a new consensus in favor of a covert aid program.

Secretary of State George P. Shultz told congressmen last month that he opposed the idea, arguing that aid to the Angolan rebels, the National Union for the Total Independence of Angola (UNITA), would only produce “a stalemate at higher levels of violence.”

But on Friday, the State Department issued a statement backing aid to UNITA as long as the effort does not conflict with the Administration’s other efforts in southern Africa.

“We want to be supportive of UNITA,” said the statement, read by spokesman Joseph W. Reap. “The instrument and format of that expression is important. In the coming weeks, we intend to work with the Congress to meet that objective in a way compatible with our broader policy goals.”

$200 Million Studied

The Washington Post reported Thursday that one proposal under consideration calls for more than $200 million in covert aid--a figure much greater than the United States ever committed to the rebels in Nicaragua.

The Post also reported that top Pentagon officials are particularly anxious for President Reagan to decide the issue before his Nov. 19-20 summit with Soviet leader Mikhail S. Gorbachev, in order to strengthen the U.S. hand in any talks about southern Africa. White House and State Department spokesmen refused to comment on the reports.

Reagan has publicly lauded the Angolan guerrillas as “freedom fighters” along with Nicaraguan and Afghan rebels--most recently, in his speech before the U.N. General Assembly on Oct. 24. But until Congress repealed its 10-year-old prohibition, which grew out of CIA involvement in Angola’s 1975-76 civil war, Reagan was blocked from sending them aid.

At the same time, however, Shultz has been working to negotiate an agreement under which the Cuban troops helping the Angolan government would withdraw, putting pressure on the government and UNITA to end the guerrilla war and reach a political settlement.

“The settlement we have proposed offers the only reasonable way out for the parties directly concerned,” Shultz wrote in a letter to Rep. Robert H. Michel (R-Ill.), the House minority leader.

But the State Department position touched off a right-wing revolt. “United States support for UNITA . . . is not only a geostrategic but a moral necessity,” Michel replied to Shultz.