Contra Arms Plan Is Laid to Israelis : Senate Panel’s Report Details Jerusalem Role

A draft report by the Senate Intelligence Committee says that Israel has sent Soviet-made weapons to the rebels fighting Nicaragua’s leftist regime, according to sources who have read the paper.

The report appears to be the first authoritative confirmation that Israel has been sending arms to the contras, who were barred from receiving U.S. military aid from 1984 until last October.

Other sources in Washington and Central America have said that Israel has supplied guns and ammunition to the rebels since 1983, including Soviet-made equipment captured from the Palestine Liberation Organization during Israel’s invasion of Lebanon in 1982.

Peres Repeats Denials

Israel has consistently denied reports that it has been providing arms to the contras, and Foreign Minister Shimon Peres repeated those denials Saturday during a visit to Rome.

Several senior Reagan Administration officials said they did not know of any Israeli shipments to the rebels. “If it’s true, I’m shocked,” said Elliott Abrams, assistant secretary of state for Latin America. “I’m really very surprised.”

The draft report, which centers on the Administration’s secret sales of arms to Iran, was prepared for public release by the staff of the Intelligence Committee last month. The committee then decided not to release the report, but details have been leaking steadily for a week.

The report’s reference to Israeli arms shipments to the contras was first reported by Shimon Shiffer, Washington correspondent for Israel radio. In a broadcast Saturday, Shiffer quoted the draft as saying that Israel transferred “a large shipload of Soviet weapons” to the rebels on Sept. 19, 1986.

Other sources familiar with the report confirmed that it mentions Israeli aid to the contras, but said they were unable to confirm the date or any details.

“There is credible evidence that Israel has provided weapons,” one source said.

Contra officials have said they have asked Israel for military aid and negotiated with Israeli arms dealers for access to the stocks of weaponry captured in Lebanon, but have refused to say whether or not Israel sent them arms.

‘Prices Are High’

“They have offered to sell us weapons, but their prices are high,” one contra official said recently.

There also have been periodic reports in Central America of Israeli arms deliveries by sea and air. A Honduran who said he handled one such shipment has told Dan Williams, correspondent for The Times, that an Israeli ship unloaded Soviet-made AK-47 rifles, ammunition and other material at the Caribbean port of Puerto Cortes last Nov. 16. The Honduran’s account could not be independently corroborated.

The contras often use Soviet-made weapons, although they were initially armed by the United States. Contra officials note that troops armed with Soviet rifles can use ammunition captured from the Sandinista army, which is supplied primarily by the Soviet Union and Cuba.

The Associated Press reported from Portugal on Saturday that a Lisbon weekly newspaper, Expresso, said 15 flights carrying arms bought in Israel for the Nicaraguan rebels had passed through Lisbon airport in 1986.

Expresso reported additionally, the AP said, that Energy Resources International, a company it said was owned by retired U.S. Air Force Maj. Gen. Richard V. Secord, ordered arms from Portugal for use by the contras. It said arms ordered by Secord’s company were part of more than $8-million worth of weapons and ammunition supplied to the contras by Portuguese arms manufacturers from 1984 to 1986.

Refuses All Comment

Secord has refused to testify before Congress about Iran arms sales and contra aid, invoking the Fifth Amendment against self-incrimination, and he has declined all public comment.

Israel has close relations with several Central America countries and has previously sold weapons to the governments of Guatemala, Honduras and El Salvador. Israel and Honduras are currently negotiating a possible Honduran purchase of Israeli-made Kfir jet fighters.

Reporters have also noticed an increasing number of Israeli personnel in Honduras in recent months, both in the capital of Tegucigalpa and the main base for U.S. troops at Palmerola. Israeli officials have declined to say whether the visitors have arrived to advise the contras or the Honduran military.

Israeli arms shipments to the contras would not violate U.S. law as long as the equipment was not made or supplied by the United States, officials said.

U.S. Role Being Probed

However, several congressional committees have been investigating whether the Administration asked or encouraged Israel to provide aid to the contras. Congress prohibited all U.S. funding of military aid for the rebels from Oct. 12, 1984, to Sept. 30, 1986.

In 1985, Congress added a provision prohibiting the Administration from pressuring any recipient of U.S. aid into helping the contras. Israel is the largest single recipient of U.S. foreign aid and is slated to receive about $3 billion during the current fiscal year.

Times correspondents Dan Fisher in Jerusalem and Dan Williams in Mexico City also contributed to this story.