GOP Derails Contras Aid to Outflank O’Neill : House Vote Stymies Democrats’ Plan to Add Rebel Funds to Spending Bill Reagan Opposes

House Republicans, charging that Speaker Thomas P. (Tip) O’Neill Jr. was trying unfairly to engineer the defeat of President Reagan’s proposal to aid Nicaraguan rebels, stunned the Democratic leadership Wednesday by sabotaging the legislation themselves.

O’Neill’s strategy had been to attach the bill proposing aid for the Nicaraguan rebels, known as contras, to a spending bill that the President has threatened to veto. Calling that move a “damn charade,” House Republicans voted with the Democrats, 361-66, to accept instead a proposal that denies any further aid to the contras.

That led O’Neill to withdraw the spending bill from consideration, because the Republican maneuver effectively deprived Democrats of the chance to vote for their own compromise proposal.

O’Neill and other Democrats favor a bill that would provide contras aid with restrictions that the President opposes.

Measure to Resurface

In adopting the unexpected tactic, the Republicans also virtually guaranteed themselves a new opportunity to bring the issue to a vote in the House, perhaps early next month.

O’Neill was clearly unprepared for the unusual move, which Republican leaders had been plotting secretly with White House officials for nearly a week. It was a rare--and perhaps short-lived--victory for the beleaguered 182-member Republican minority in the 435-seat House.

But it also represented another frustrating delay for Reagan in his determined efforts to persuade Congress to provide $100 million in military and logistical aid to the contras. Not since 1983 has the President had congressional approval for providing weapons to the rebels.

At the White House, spokesman Larry Speakes declared that Reagan “fully understands” why the House GOP leadership acted as it did.

‘National Security’ Argued

“The President continues to believe that this is an urgent measure vital to our national security,” he said.

The Republican strategy was based on the premise that a majority of House members, Democrats as well as Republicans, would have supported a Senate-passed aid measure sought by the President if they had been permitted a straight up-or-down vote on it.

The House minority leader, Rep. Robert H. Michel (R-Ill.), said the Speaker had devised an unfair, “heads-I-win, tails-you-lose” process by attaching contras aid to a spending bill that the President has threatened to veto.

“I think the President deserves better treatment than we are giving him today by this damn charade,” Michel said.

In order to avert near certain defeat under O’Neill’s rules, the Republicans chose instead to torpedo the whole process by voting for a liberal Democratic alternative sponsored by Rep. Lee H. Hamilton (D-Ind.) denying any direct financial aid to the contras, a bill that had been expected to fail.

Democrats predicted that O’Neill, viewing the Republican move as a personal affront, would respond by making it even harder for the President to win congressional approval of his contra aid request when it next comes up for a vote. Unlike many conservative members of his own party, the Speaker has consistently opposed Reagan’s desire to aid the contras.

‘Car Bombing’ Metaphor

“The first victim of a car bombing is the person inside the car,” said O’Neill’s spokesman, Christopher J. Matthews. “They succeeded in destroying the President’s contra aid proposal.”

The Senate-passed measure, which Reagan supports, would immediately provide the contras with $25 million to purchase supplies and weapons judged to be defensive in nature, such as Stinger anti-aircraft missiles. The remainder of the aid, which could be used for offensive weapons, would be released automatically in increments of 15% every 90 days, beginning July 1.

Unlike the Senate bill, the House proposal by Rep. Dave McCurdy (D-Okla.) would provide no money for weapons before July 28 and would require a second affirmative vote of Congress to release the military aid after that date. It would also call on Reagan to engage in direct, bilateral talks with the Marxist government in Nicaragua, something the President has so far resisted.

Democrats had hoped that the McCurdy proposal would unite all members of their party--conservatives who support contra aid as well as liberals who oppose it. But Republicans viewed the McCurdy measure as an exercise in political chicanery that would allow Democrats to proclaim their support for contra aid while actually contributing to its defeat.

Veto Was Foreseen

The Republican whip, Rep. Trent Lott of Mississippi, said that even though the Republicans might have been able to defeat the McCurdy proposal and win adoption of the Senate-passed measure, the bill would ultimately have been vetoed by Reagan because it was attached to the supplemental spending measure that the President opposes.

“A man who would strike Libya would veto a supplemental appropriation,” Lott remarked.

But Democrats said that the Republicans’ move was sabotage and an admission that they did not have sufficient votes to defeat the McCurdy proposal.

“They didn’t think they could win the fight when they got to the next round so they took a legislative dive,” said the Democratic whip, Rep. Thomas S. Foley of Washington.

Democrats also took offense at the suggestion that O’Neill’s tactics had been unfair. In a floor speech following the vote, the Speaker emphasized that the House had defeated Reagan’s original aid request, 222 to 210, on March 20.

Foley argued that the President’s proposal is running into stiff opposition in the House because polls show that a majority of Americans oppose it.

Further Difficulty

Republicans vowed to bring the Senate-passed contra aid measure to the floor for a vote on May 12 by obtaining the signatures of a majority of House members on a “discharge petition.”

Democrats predicted their effort would fail, but O’Neill suggested that he might allow the aid issue to be reconsidered later this year when the House considers a highly controversial spending bill for the Pentagon.

Democrats admitted, however, that the Republicans’ legislative stunt had succeeded in undermining their strategy to force the President to sign a bill that would limit his power to defer spending approved by Congress--the key issue in the controversial supplemental appropriations bill that Reagan has promised to veto.

Sources said O’Neill linked the contra aid measure and the spending package in hopes of forcing the President to agree to curtail the spending delays.

The spending bill also would authorize an extra $1.7 billion in the current fiscal year as spending authority for a variety of programs, including $330 million to cover bills run up in federal disaster relief programs by heavy flooding in Northern California and other calamities around the country.