U.S. Intensifies Angola Pressure : $15-Million Aid Program Being Readied for Rebels

The Reagan Administration, stepping up pressure on the Marxist government of Angola, has decided to prepare a $15-million program of covert military aid for rebels fighting the regime, congressional sources said Tuesday.

The aid proposal has not been finally approved by the White House, but the offer appears aimed at pushing the government of President Jose Eduardo dos Santos toward an agreement to send home the thousands of Cuban troops and advisers aiding its army.

Assistant Secretary of State Chester A. Crocker plans to meet with Angolan officials at the end of the month to learn whether they are ready for such an agreement.

The United States has been promoting a Cuban withdrawal from Angola as part of a package deal that would also include a South African pullout from the neighboring territory of Namibia.

President Reagan has said that he favors covert aid to the rebels of the National Union for the Total Independence of Angola, led by Jonas Savimbi. However, Secretary of State George P. Shultz--who has been quoted as similarly favoring covert aid--has won a delay in the formal decision to provide such assistance, arguing that Crocker should be given one more chance to get negotiations under way.

The Administration’s position has drawn opposition from right-wingers in Congress, who want to send Savimbi enough military aid to overthrow the Marxist government.

Sen. Malcolm Wallop (R-Wyo.) proposed an amendment giving $50 million to the Savimbi rebels in the Senate debate on an appropriations bill Tuesday. The Senate voted 58 to 39 not to consider the amendment, but the majority leader, Sen. Bob Dole (R-Kan.), promised to schedule another vote on the issue before the end of the year.

A senior official summoned reporters to the State Department for a briefing on the issue Tuesday--a session that appeared aimed both at pushing the Angolans toward concessions and convincing Senate conservatives that the Administration is taking a tough approach.

“There is growing impatience in this country with any suggestion that we might have our diplomatic efforts used as a sort of device to buy time,” he said. “We’re not going to participate in that kind of a shell game. We have said that to the South Africans; we’ve said it to the Angolans, too.”

‘External Involvement’

The official warned that a failure to negotiate would risk “international external involvement . . . (and) only assure that Angola will bleed at higher levels.”

Asked whether “external involvement” could include U.S. military aid to the Angolan rebels, the official replied, “I certainly wouldn’t exclude anything.”

He said that both South Africa and Angola have indicated a new willingness to discuss a phased withdrawal of foreign troops from Angola and Namibia, also known as South-West Africa, which is ruled by South Africa in defiance of repeated U.N. calls for its independence.

“We see some indications that perhaps both sides, for different reasons, have begun to sense some of the drawbacks of proceeding down a purely military track,” the official said.

The Administration has been trying for five years to negotiate a deal in which Angola would send home the Cuban force, which includes ground combat troops, air force pilots, tank crews, advisers and trainers. Officials say they believe a Cuban withdrawal would force the Marxist regime in Luanda to negotiate with Savimbi--who has been variously described as pro-Western, anti-Marxist and South African-supported.

The other side of the deal, they say, would be independence for Namibia and a withdrawal of the South African troops who have frequently raided Angola in support of Savimbi’s guerrilla army.

Meetings With Angolan

Crocker met with Angolan Interior Minister Alexandre Rodrigues in Lusaka, Zambia, last month and agreed to another meeting in Luanda before the end of the year. That meeting was described by several sources as a virtual deadline for the Angolans to commit themselves to a Cuban withdrawal plan or face U.S. aid to Savimbi.

The Administration would be required by law to inform Congress secretly of any actual decision to send covert aid to the Angolan guerrillas. Several liberal Democrats have already announced that they would fight such a decision.

Meanwhile, conservatives have said they want open assistance for the rebels, not covert aid. “For us to do it secretly almost concedes that something is questionable or shameful about what we are doing, and I don’t believe that,” Sen. William L. Armstrong (R-Colo.) said Tuesday.

But Shultz and Crocker, arguing that aid above board would make a negotiated settlement even more difficult, have persuaded Reagan to consider only covert assistance, and to delay a final decision until after Crocker’s forthcoming visit to Luanda.