Wright Open to Contra Aid Compromise : Speaker Would Consider an Escrow Plan on Military Funding

House Speaker Jim Wright (D-Tex.) said Sunday that he would consider a proposal from President Reagan to extend humanitarian aid to the Nicaraguan Contras and at the same time put military aid in escrow for use only under specified conditions.

The Speaker also said during a television interview that any action to delay the House vote on the Administration’s request for Contra aid that is scheduled for Feb. 3 must be initiated by the President. Reagan is expected to deliver a strong appeal for the aid in the State of the Union message he will deliver at 6 p.m. PST today.

There was no hint of compromise Sunday when a reporter asked the President on his return from a weekend at Camp David, Md., whether he expects Congress to approve military aid. Reagan’s reply was a laconic “We’ll try.”

‘Carefully Tailored’ Proposal

When asked if the Administration is proposing the escrow procedure for lethal aid, Assistant Secretary of State Elliott Abrams, who appeared prior to Wright on ABC’s televised “This Week With David Brinkley,” said, “We’re still working on the package.” The Administration’s proposal, he said, “will be very carefully tailored to support the (Central American peace) negotiations.”

Abrams made it clear, however, that the Administration will be seeking “direct military aid,” as well as non-lethal aid. He did not comment directly on the recommendation put forward Friday by 19 middle-of-the-road Democratic congressmen in a letter to President Reagan that he delay his aid request pending further developments in the Central American peace process. But Abrams strongly advocated continued pressure to extract concessions from Nicaragua’s Marxist-led Sandinista regime.

Two senior Republican Senators, Alan K. Simpson of Wyoming, the minority whip, and Ted Stevens of Alaska, his predecessor in the post, indicated readiness to go along with deferment of the vote, an approach also suggested by Sen. Bob Dole (R-Kan.), the Senate’s minority leader. The Senate is committed to vote the day after the House acts--provided that the measure passes the House.

‘Not Adverse’ to Delay

Simpson, interviewed on NBC’s “Meet the Press,” said that he will make up his mind on the desirability of postponing a vote after he hears “the intensity of the President in the State of the Union address.” Personally, Simpson added, “I would not be adverse to that at all.”

Stevens, appearing on the ABC program, said in an apparent reference to Senate Republicans that “we would accept a delay,” but he did not think one would be acceptable to those House Democrats “who oppose any aid to the Contras.” He said he expects Reagan to “come up with some sort of escrow fund concept.”

Election-year overtones were evident in many of the comments, but they were frankly stated by Abrams, who accused House Democratic leaders of proposing to “hand the Sandinistas their ultimate objective” out of a “desire to beat the President as a political issue and kill off the Contras as a political issue without regard to the potential impact on the negotiations” now under way in Central America.

Inflation Threatens Managua

Abrams agreed with a questioner that Nicaragua’s inflation, which he estimated at 1,800%, now threatens the Sandinista regime with collapse. But he said that the Soviet Union “keeps it on its feet.”

“The real question,” Abrams said, “is whether we’re going to let the Soviets buy domination of Central America, or whether we’re going to continue supporting the Nicaraguans who want to fight to win their country back.”

Asked whether loss of the Contra-aid proposal would hand Republicans a political issue, Abrams said that was “generally correct.”

Wright argued that the views of Central American presidents should be taken into consideration in reaching a decision on putting arms funds into escrow.

Cease-Fire Possible

“I think if this Administration would spend just a fraction of the time trying to encourage both sides to be forthcoming and create a cease-fire, we’d have peace,” he said.

The Speaker repeatedly refused to say categorically whether he would support a measure funding humanitarian aid without provisions for lethal aid. Facing the same question later at a Democratic conference at White Sulphur Springs, W. Va., he told reporters: “I don’t want to be hypothetical; let’s see what the President recommends.”