Desperate, Divisive

How many times have Presidents begged for bipartisan support for American foreign policy? How many times have foreign-policy specialists pointed out that nothing impresses both adversaries and allies like this country’s speaking with a united voice? How many times have they said that nothing promotes mischief abroad like bitter division on foreign policy? And where was President Reagan when all of these perfectly valid propositions were being advanced?

His emotional and absurd attempt last week to divide Congress into members who are pulling for him on Nicaragua and members who are pulling for the communists--and to make the latter scatter for cover--ravaged bipartisanship and made rational debate impossible.

It was the desperate act of a President clearly frustrated by falling support for his Central American policies or that Reagan may sincerely believe that Nicaragua is a menace does not excuse his intemperance. Nor did his later effort to soften the effect of his words mitigate the damage that he had done.

At issue is Reagan’s demand that Congress provide $100 million for weapons and supplies for the Nicaraguan rebels, the contras, who are trying to bring down the Sandinista government.

A good many members of Congress oppose giving the contras any more money, for a variety of reasons. Most would like to see democracy in Nicaragua but think that the rebels could not fight their way out of a paper bag, let alone into Nicaragua’s capital, and respected military analysts agree with them. A variation of this view was expressed last week by Sen. Nancy Landon Kassebaum (R-Kan.). The contras, she said, are doomed unless they can “unify and present themselves as a legitimate, democratic alternative to the Sandinistas.” But that is not likely as long as the leadership of the contras is top-heavy with former members of ousted dictator Anastasio Somoza’s brutal National Guard. Even Nicaraguans who chafe under the Sandinistas do not want the Somocistas back in charge.

Other critics of Reagan’s Nicaragua policies simply believe that negotiations, especially peace talks being arranged by our Latin American allies, will produce a change in the Sandinistas’ behavior faster and more effectively than brute force.

Those views, among them, probably represent a majority in the House of Representatives. Those are votes against the Reagan policy. Nowhere among them is a vote for the communists. By even suggesting that such sympathies exist on Capitol Hill, Reagan needlessly impugns the honor of patriotic Americans whose only sin is that they view the world differently from the way he does. There have always been intellectual thugs on both the political right and left who seem to enjoy chastising their opponents beyond the bounds of normal debate, but people have a right to expect a higher level of discourse from the White House.