Reagan to Ask Congress for $270 Million in Contra Aid

President Reagan, in a decision expected to create a firestorm of protest, intends to ask Congress for $270 million to support Nicaragua’s contra s for the next 18 months, despite a Central American peace plan scheduled to take effect Nov. 7, Secretary of State George P. Shultz said Thursday.

Shultz’s announcement, in testimony before the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, drew immediate criticism from Democrats on the panel, who urged the Administration to take no action on contra aid at least until after the peace plan, adopted by all five Central American presidents, is given a chance to work.

Shultz said that Nicaragua’s leftist government cannot be expected to abide by the peace plan’s call for democratic reforms unless it is forced to do so by the prospect of renewed military pressure from the contras.

The $270 million dwarfs the $100-million appropriation for aid to the contras during the current fiscal year, which ends Sept. 30. If approved by Congress, the money would virtually double the total amount of U.S. aid provided to the contras since 1981 and would last until March 31, 1989, more than two months into the Administration of Reagan’s successor.

Without renewed U.S. financial support, Shultz said, “the resistance (contras) will be facing advanced Soviet weaponry and Cuban advisers with rapidly dwindling resources and no further help from us.”

The preliminary peace accord, signed Aug. 7 in Guatemala City by the presidents of Nicaragua, Costa Rica, Honduras, El Salvador and Guatemala, is scheduled to take effect Nov. 7. The plan calls for a cease-fire in the insurgencies in Nicaragua and El Salvador, amnesty for former rebels, an end to support for guerrilla attacks on neighboring territory, an end to outside support for “irregular forces,” free speech, free press, free elections and other democratic reforms.

Although the plan covers all five nations, the democratization provisions are aimed primarily at Nicaragua.

If the cease-fire takes effect as scheduled, Shultz said that U.S. aid could be used to keep the contras together until it becomes certain that the Nicaraguan government will abide by the truce and institute the required democratic reforms. If the Sandinistas violate any part of the accord, the money could be used to support a resumption of the fighting by the contras.

The peace plan, originally proposed by Costa Rican President Oscar Arias Sanchez, calls for all provisions to take effect at once, a matter that Shultz underlined in his testimony. He said that the plan will be null and void if any party fails to live up to any of its provisions.

“If the (Nicaraguan President Daniel) Ortega regime fails to meet its signed obligation to enable the resistance to return openly to Nicaragua and organize politically and freely, then Nicaragua’s neighbors will not be obligated to ban resistance military and political support activities in their countries,” Shultz said.

“If no cease-fire is negotiated, other measures are in abeyance. They have to be implemented simultaneously or none of them can be implemented. If any part fails, the entire structure fails,” he added.

Democrats Critical

Democrats on the committee were unanimous in urging the Administration to give the peace plan a chance. Most predicted that, if the Administration sought a vote on contra aid before Nov. 7, the measure would be defeated.

“I would hope that the Administration, in order to show its good faith and so as not to cast a negative shadow over the peace process, would not request assistance for the contras as the plan moves toward implementation,” Chairman Claiborne Pell (D-R.I.) said.

“Any request like this before Nov. 7 would be a significant, profound, historical mistake,” Sen. Christopher J. Dodd (D-Conn.) said.

“It may very well be that our giving aid to the contras will be seen by the other four countries, not just Nicaragua, as bad faith on our part. . . . This will kill the peace plan,” Sen. Terry Sanford (D-N.C.) said.

Republicans on the committee did not join in the criticism of the Administration’s proposal but, with the exception of Sen. Jesse Helms (R-N.C.), they showed little enthusiasm for it.

For his part, Helms said that the Administration plan is too little and too late. He called for $310 million in aid over 18 months to take effect Oct. 1. Helms submitted his plan as a rider to a pending election finance reform bill.

“The peace plan appears to me to be largely beneficial to the Sandinistas,” Helms said. He scoffed at provisions calling for the four-nation Contadora Group to help monitor compliance with democratic reforms.

“How much confidence can be placed in governments like Panama and Mexico, which wouldn’t know a democracy if it fell out of the sky,” Helms said, referring to two of the Contadora countries. The others are Colombia and Venezuela.

Vital for Morale

Administration officials concede that the measure faces tough opposition in Congress. But they said it is vital to the contras’ morale for the Administration to make its intentions clear.

Shultz declined to say when the Administration would formally send its aid request to Capitol Hill, though he said it would not be until after Sept. 30. The Administration reached an agreement with House Speaker Jim Wright (D-Tex.) not to request renewed contra aid until after that date.

The current $100-million appropriation runs out Sept. 30, but the contras have said they can get by for several weeks with weapons and other equipment already in the pipeline.

A spokesman for Wright said White House National Security Adviser Frank C. Carlucci told the House Democratic leadership Wednesday that the request would be submitted Oct. 1. The spokesman said Wright told Carlucci that the appropriation would be rejected by Congress if it was submitted that soon.

White House spokesman Marlin Fitzwater said the Administration wants to make sure that both the contras and the Sandinistas realize that Reagan is “serious in his commitment not to desert the resistance.”

Nicaraguan Ambassador Carlos Tunnermann said the Administration’s announcement “shows contempt for the leaders of the region, who in the Guatemala accord called on the United States to stop waging war against Nicaragua. . . . Everybody knows that peace cannot be achieved by fanning the flames of war.”

Costa Rica’s Arias, the original author of the peace plan, urged the Administration to hold off at least until after Nov. 7. Interviewed by broadcaster John McLaughlin, Arias said that he opposes U.S. aid to the contras at any time but that it would be extremely damaging for Washington to act before Nov. 7.

An Administration official noted that opponents of the Administration’s plan focused almost entirely on the timing rather than the substance of the aid request. Paradoxically, the Guatemala City agreement does not require the fighting to stop--nor does it prohibit U.S. support for the contras--before Nov. 7. After that date, the agreement bans all outside aid to irregular forces, a provision that certainly covers U.S. assistance to the contras.

Therefore, many of the Administration’s critics are, in effect, urging the United States to observe a voluntary moratorium on aid during a period when it would be not be prohibited while tacitly agreeing that aid could be provided later when it would seem to be banned entirely.