House Panel Rejects $100 Million Nicaragua Bill Over Reagan Plea

Despite a last-minute plea from President Reagan, the Democratic-controlled House Intelligence Committee voted today to disapprove his request for $100 million in aid for U.S.-backed rebels in Nicaragua.

The panel, which traditionally has been a strong opponent of support for the contra rebels, voted 9 to 7 to give the proposal an unfavorable recommendation.

Republican Robert Livingston of Louisiana criticized the outcome, saying “it makes it patently apparent that it has become the national Democratic policy to obstruct the President’s policy in Nicaragua.”

Appeal for Support

Before the vote, Reagan declared the money must be approved so the United States can be spared having to use “our own American boys” to fight the communist government.

Saying Congress faced “a historic decision,” Reagan told a White House audience that “if we give them the aid they need, the Nicaraguan people can win this battle for freedom on their own. American troops have not been asked for and are not needed.”

“We must make sure they never are needed,” Reagan told members of a Jewish organization. “We send money and material now so we will never have to send our own American boys.”

“But if the members of Congress hide their heads in the sand and pretend the Nicaraguan threat will go away, they are courting disaster and history will hold them accountable,” he said. “Nothing less than the security of the United States is at stake.”

Earlier, Defense Secretary Caspar W. Weinberger argued that the leftist Nicaraguan government was becoming a “second Cuba on the American mainland (meaning) the Warsaw Pact will have effectively outflanked us.”

House Speaker Thomas P. O’Neill Jr. (D-Mass.) told his daily news conference that military aid won’t really help the outnumbered “rag-tag” contras and said he feared approval of the request would lead to direct U.S. involvement.

O’Neill said he has heard estimates that because it took 7,000 troops to overthrow the government of Grenada, it would take from 100,000 to 150,000 to defeat Nicaragua’s government.

“I can see what’s happening,” he said. “Eventually, some American will be wounded and you’ll find us in the fray. . . . I think it’s a wrong American policy. You ought to be able to go the diplomatic route. I haven’t met a world leader who agrees with American policy.”