Wright Against Contra Aid Even if Peace Fails

House Speaker Jim Wright (D-Tex.) declared Friday that Congress should not resume military assistance to the Contras, even if the Central American peace process fails to bring about a restoration of basic freedoms in Nicaragua.

“I am not prepared to say that the Contras’ military effort should be funded because that presumes that we have the right to dictate the form of their society and to enforce that dictate at the end of a bayonet,” Wright said in an interview with The Times.

His views appear certain to anger Republicans, Administration officials and other supporters of the Nicaraguan resistance who had anticipated that the Speaker would be forced to agree to continued Contra aid if the peace talks fail.

Expecting Success

Wright, who has been at the center of controversy for the last week because of his recent high-profile meetings with Nicaraguan President Daniel Ortega, emphasized that he expects the peace process to succeed.

“I’m not going to anticipate failure,” he said. “I never would have gotten into this if I had thought the prospects were that we couldn’t put it together. . . . I believe there is a will on the part of both sides to move toward peace.”

He also held out hope that the Sandinista regime of Managua would restore democratic freedoms in Nicaragua, but he acknowledged that there probably would be an effort made in Congress early next year to resume Contra aid if the government does not lift its current state of emergency.

“There’s a minimum that Congress would surely like to see there,” he said. “I think we have the responsibility to suggest that there ought to be free speech, free press, free assembly, the general rule that private property ought not to be confiscated, except by due process--the things basically guaranteed in the constitution of Nicaragua but suspended in the emergency act.”

President Reagan is expected to ask Congress for $270 million in military assistance to the Contras next January, if the peace process fails. But the Speaker said that a resumption of Contra aid would only be justified if it had the support of the leaders of countries in the region, most of whom have long been opposed to U.S. aid to the Nicaraguan resistance.

“There are circumstances in which U.S. aid can be warranted,” he said. “But simply on our own volition, to decide that we have the right to kick other people around and tell them what they’ve got to do and force them to do it, I believe is fundamentally flawed.

Whirlwind of Resentment

“It is that attitude that has reaped a whirlwind of resentment in the hemisphere and we should demonstrate a willingness to be a part of the family rather than trying to be landlord of the neighborhood.”

Wright said that the United States has no right to “dictate” the form of government that will be adopted in Nicaragua. “We can’t expect them to do a computer printout or a carbon copy of our forms of society,” he added.

Despite criticism from Republicans that Wright allowed himself to be “used” by Ortega at a time when the President and other top Administration officials are refusing to meet with the Sandinista leader, the Speaker insisted that he would meet with Ortega again if such a meeting could promote peace.

While denying charges that he had helped Ortega draft his 11-point bargaining position, he acknowledged that he gave Ortega some advice on how it should read.

“I suggested that he divest it of any vituperative language directed at the United States or the Contras,” he said.

In an effort to smooth over his differences with the Administration, Wright and Secretary of State George P. Shultz announced last Tuesday that they had agreed to try in the future to work together in pursuit of U.S. policy in Central America.

Abrams’ Criticism

The Speaker said he had privately received “the closest thing you could expect to an apology” from Shultz for criticism leveled at Wright in the Washington Post by an unnamed source, believed to be Assistant Secretary of State Elliott Abrams.

Since then, White House officials have accused Wright of trying to get even with the Administration by leaking word that Reagan had extended a preliminary invitation to Soviet leader Mikhail S. Gorbachev to address a joint session of Congress.

Premature disclosure of the invitation is believed to have contributed to the furor that it caused among Republican conservatives in Congress, who have vowed to walk out if the Soviet leader makes the speech.

Wright insisted that he was not the first government official to publicly discuss the Gorbachev invitation. But he added that, as a result of the reaction among conservatives, he expects that Reagan will not formalize the invitation to Gorbachev to speak.

Instead, he predicted that members of Congress will meet with the Soviet leader in another forum.