THE IRAN--CONTRA HEARINGS : President to Seek to Extend Contra Funding Into 1989

The White House, seeking to take advantage of the wave of public affection for Lt. Col. Oliver L. North, is planning to ask Congress to extend government support of Nicaragua’s contras into the term of the next President.

White House spokesman Marlin Fitzwater said Tuesday that President Reagan would seek as much as $140 million for the rebels for an 18-month period beginning Oct. 1. That would extend U.S. support to April 1, 1989, more than two months after Reagan’s successor takes office.

Administration officials were buoyed by a White House poll indicating that North’s six days of televised testimony before the congressional Iran-contra committees may have produced a sudden swell of public support for the rebels.

‘Stand on Roof’

The President, asked how he would make his views about the contras known, said during a photo session at the start of a meeting with Republican congressional leaders that he would “stand on the roof and yell.”

Although the Administration has yet to send a specific funding request to Congress, it was understood in recent months to be seeking about $105 million in military and non-military aid for fiscal 1988 for the forces seeking to overthrow the Marxist government in Nicaragua. That would equal the appropriation for the current fiscal year, which ends Sept. 30.

However, Fitzwater said that that figure might be increased to $140 million--an estimate confirmed by another White House official--and that the funding period would be 18 months, rather than one year.

“The amount has been increasing . . . as the situation evolves there and the time changes,” Fitzwater said. He added that the Administration began its assessment of the contras’ needs before the congressional hearings got under way in May.

At one point in recent months, some Administration officials considered requesting as much as $300 million for the contras next year.

Key Figure in Contra Aid

North spent much of his time before the congressional committees urging continued U.S. support of the contras. He was a key figure in the Administration’s efforts to aid the contras until he was fired from the National Security Council staff last Nov. 25 for his role in the sale of arms to Iran and the diversion of profits to the contras after Congress had cut off government support.

His testimony prompted a surge of telephone calls, letters and telegrams to the White House and congressional offices indicating support for the rebels, officials have said.

That support has also shown up in public opinion polls.

A poll of 600 people taken for the White House Monday night by Richard B. Wirthlin found that 48% of those questioned favored funding for the contras, 46% opposed it and the remaining 6% were undecided, an aide to Wirthlin said.

A survey of 1,050 persons from June 27 to 29, before North testified, found 30% in support of the funding, 64% opposed and 6% undecided, the Wirthlin assistant said. Both polls asked: “Do you favor or oppose the U.S. providing additional economic and military aid to the contras who are fighting the Nicaraguan government?”

A White House aide said that, in the past, no Wirthlin poll had found support for contra funding running higher than the high 30% range.

A Los Angeles Times poll of 2,311 people, conducted Friday to Monday, after North had testified for four days, found 42% in favor of contra aid, 42% opposed and 16% undecided. A similar poll last February, as details of the Iran arms sales and diversion of funds to the contras were becoming better known, found those surveyed opposing such aid by a ratio of 5 to 3.

Until North testified, the White House had not been overly optimistic about Congress’ approving the funding request, which is not expected to be voted on until after the August congressional recess. It was feared that the controversy surrounding the Iran-contra affair had doomed the spending request.

Despite the White House’s new optimism, a source close to the Democratic leadership of the Senate said that “it may be a little premature and a misreading of North’s popularity” to view the sudden surge of support for the contras as a signal of a lasting shift in public opinion.

“You have to let the afterglow of his testimony fade a bit to see if it has affected contra aid,” the source said. “I don’t think what he’s done is change American opinion. What he’s done is make an articulate case” for contra assistance.

Rep. Sam Gejdenson (D-Conn.), a leader of the opponents of funding for the rebels, said that support for North “can’t be translated into a kind of rebirth of a failed policy.”

Even before North testified, the White House was in the midst of rebuilding its effort to obtain money for the contras.

Former Rep. Tom Loeffler (R-Tex.) was hired to work with Congress, and Cresencio Arcos, a U.S. Information Agency officer, was being assigned to spearhead the efforts to reach out for public support.

“It becomes their responsibility to come up with a way to start building on what the public response is” to North, said a senior White House official. “They’re coming in with a better leg up.”

The official, speaking on the condition of anonymity, said that North “has done a better job in explaining the policy than the President has in two years.” But, he acknowledged, the support shown for the policy may actually be a wave of sympathy for North.

“You’ve got to be careful that people don’t overreact to what’s there,” he said.