Wright’s Latin Role Assailed by Republicans

House Speaker Jim Wright (D-Tex.) came under intense criticism Friday from Republican members of Congress and Reagan Administration officials for becoming personally involved in peace talks between the Nicaraguan government and the Contras--something President Reagan has refused to do.

In response, Wright strongly denied suggestions by his critics that he was allowing himself to be used by Nicaraguan leader Daniel Ortega or that by meeting with Ortega he was usurping Reagan’s power to conduct foreign policy as he sees fit.

Unorthodox Role

“I am no diplomat,” Wright declared. “I have no experience to negotiate a peace settlement. . . . Whatever I have done has been at the invitation of others.”

It was only the latest twist in the highly unorthodox role that Wright has played in the Central American peace process, beginning last August when he persuaded Reagan to support a peace plan for the region.

Nevertheless, it gave resentful Republicans an opportunity to criticize Wright for his unusual approach, which has had the effect of boxing the President into a position of favoring the peace process--even though the results of the talks so far have satisfied neither Reagan nor his conservative supporters.

It is not unusual for members of Congress to get involved in diplomacy--particularly in Central America--nor is it particularly novel for self-appointed congressional diplomats to carry out a mission opposed by the President. But Wright’s intervention took on more significance because he is the Speaker and spokesman for his party and because his actions come at a very delicate stage in the Central American peace process.

Meeting With Ortega

Wright particularly angered Republicans by meeting privately Thursday and Friday in Washington with both Ortega and Nicaraguan Cardinal Miguel Obando y Bravo, the designated mediator between the Sandinistas and the Nicaraguan resistance.

According to State Department spokesman Charles Redman, Wright met with Secretary of State George P. Shultz shortly before his meetings Thursday with Ortega and Obando but never bothered to inform Shultz of what he was planning to do. Moreover, Republicans charged that Wright helped Ortega to fashion his negotiating demands.

Wright, who twice has declined Ortega’s invitation to serve as a mediator between the Contras and the Sandinistas, denied that he helped Ortega draft his demands. “It is not something of my making, and I don’t deserve credit for anything,” he said.

He also denied that he failed to inform Shultz of his meetings. In fact, he said that when he told Shultz that he planned to meet with Ortega and Cardinal Obando, the secretary did not discourage him and replied: “Fine. Good. I hope it works.”

But House Minority Leader Robert H. Michel (R-Ill.) complained, “First you had the Wright-Reagan plan, then you had the Arias plan, and now it appears to be the Wright-Ortega plan.”

And Sen. Nancy Landon Kassebaum (R-Kan.) suggested that Wright may have violated the Logan Act, which prohibits private U.S. citizens from conducting diplomacy without authorization from the President.

“That would seem to be a slippery slope that Speaker Wright is on,” Kassebaum said. “One can facilitate and encourage, but you must not become a negotiator.”

At the White House, spokesman Marlin Fitzwater said that the President is concerned about the role that Wright is playing--and that the Speaker has been told as much.

“While it is important for the Congress to be involved in the peace process, we think it’s also important to have a strategy for pursuing that process,” Fitzwater said. “ . . . And, while we respect the Speaker’s motives, we are concerned that he’s departed from this agreed-upon approach envisioned in the Guatemala peace plan.”

Redman said Shultz was worried that Wright might upset a delicately balanced “pressure and diplomacy” policy of the United States toward Nicaragua.

“It would be a mistake for the United States to inject itself into these negotiations,” he added. “It is not our role to mediate between Nicaraguans.”

Yet Redman acknowledged: “We don’t really know what the Speaker is doing.”

Wright noted that he first got involved in the peace process at the invitation of former Rep. Thomas Loeffler, who met with Wright last summer on behalf of the White House in an effort to find some solution to the stalemate between Congress and the Administration over funding of the Nicaraguan resistance.

When Wright told Loeffler that Congress would not support further aid to the Contras unless the President endorsed a regional peace initiative, the two men then drafted what later became known as the Wright-Reagan plan for peace in Central America. It was announced only a few days before Central American leaders met Aug. 7 to adopt a similar proposal put forth by Costa Rican President Oscar Arias Sanchez.

Initially, the Wright-Reagan plan was viewed as a clever move by the Administration to win renewed congressional support for the Contras. Administration officials anticipated that any peace initiative would be rejected by Ortega, giving Reagan a new argument for Contra funding.

Private Intelligence

But, Wright aides said, the Speaker knew something that Administration officials did not know then: that Ortega was prepared to accept the Arias plan. And when he did, Republican Contra supporters bitterly accused Reagan of abandoning these “freedom fighters” by supporting the peace plan proposed by Wright.

Democrats who oppose continued aid to the Nicaraguan resistance have frequently praised Wright for the clever role he played in drawing Reagan into a position of supporting the peace process. Their admiration for Wright was unchanged by the events of Thursday and Friday.

“I think he’s played a constructive role,” Senate Assistant Majority Leader Alan Cranston (D-Calif.) said. “He’s just trying to promote peace, and I’m all for anyone who’s trying to promote peace.”