Pro-Contra Group Launches Drive

A fledgling Van Nuys-based group formed to “fight Soviet imperialism” launched its opening foray Friday with a $100-a-plate, black-tie-optional dinner to raise money for the Contras , who are attempting to overthrow the leftist Sandinista government in Nicaragua.

About 60 people attended the dinner in the ballroom of St. Nicholas Greek Orthodox Church in Northridge. Sponsors said about 700 people, drawn from a list of “concerned citizens,” had been invited.

The event, timed to coincide with President Ronald Reagan’s 76th birthday, was the first fund-raising effort of a nonprofit group calling itself the Freedom Project.

The group was founded last fall by Robert C. Swanson, a Sherman Oaks lawyer and former Los Angeles County deputy district attorney. Swanson said he has also been a longtime political fund-raiser, mostly for Republican candidates, including Ed Zschau and Bruce Herschenson, both of whom failed in recent bids for the U. S. Senate.

Swanson said the group chose the President’s birthday to hold the fund-raiser “because he has been in some respects the spiritual leader of the resistance movements.” An invitation was sent to the White House, but the group received no response, he said.

Swanson, saying he was not disappointed in the turnout, said 120 people had bought tickets. He called the event “financially very successful for the organization.”

Some other “core members” of the group, he said, are Los Angeles businesswoman Mina Nelson, a naturalized American citizen born in Nicaragua; Peter Simic, a Burbank lawyer and businessman, and Peter Schuck, a Los Angeles businessman.

Supervisor Speaks

Los Angeles County Supervisor Mike Antonovich was the keynote speaker. Other speakers included Bishop Pablo Vega, a Catholic bishop expelled from Nicaragua by the Sandinistas, and Adolfo Lopez, a regional director of the United Nicaraguan Opposition, an umbrella organization of Nicaraguan opposition groups.

Although several smaller contra fund-raising events have been held in private homes in the San Fernando Valley, this is the first public one to be held in the Valley, Swanson said.

Funds raised from the dinner will be used to buy equipment such as binoculars, radios and communications devices, Swanson said.

The group will provide only “non-lethal assistance,” he said. “One of the first bylaws we have is, nothing we do will violate American law. Weapons are only a small part of what is needed, anyway. They can be obtained in other ways in other places.”