Latin Peace Trip by Shultz Planned : Mission Would Be Last-Ditch Effort to Defuse Opposition on Contra Aid

President Reagan, who urged Congress in his State of the Union speech to approve renewed aid to the Nicaraguan Contras, intends to dramatize that appeal by sending Secretary of State George P. Shultz on a peace mission to Central America, Administration officials said Monday.

They said that the proposed trip marks a last-ditch effort to defuse growing congressional opposition to more Contra aid by demonstrating White House willingness to support the region’s stalled peace process. It represents a notable departure from the Administration’s previous refusal to go beyond arms-length monitoring of that process.

Other Administration officials, speaking on condition of anonymity, also said that Reagan now is willing to put military aid for the Contras in escrow until the fate of peace talks among Nicaragua and its four Central American neighbors is clearer.

$40 Million or Less

The sources said that Reagan plans to ask Congress on Wednesday for $40 million or less in new aid for the guerrillas fighting Nicaragua’s Sandinista government. They said that most of it would be for such “humanitarian” purposes as food and that requested new military aid would amount to less than $4 million.

A House vote on Contra aid is scheduled Feb. 3, but prospects for approval are so uneven that Senate Minority Leader Bob Dole (R-Kan.) suggested Monday that the vote be postponed. A Shultz mission to Central America, one Administration official said, “is the only way to save it (Contra aid).”

Administration officials hope that the other moves will also help toward that end. The $40-million request, which would be spread over about six months, is far less than the Administration previously had planned to seek, and the escrow offer--in which the aid would be released only under specified conditions--amounts to another concession.

The proposed Shultz trip is to be announced when the aid package is submitted Wednesday, officials said. About 50 House members are believed to remain undecided on the aid issue.

Details and timing of the Shultz mission remain unsettled, officials said, but appear to involve discussions with representatives of the five nations--Nicaragua, Honduras, Guatemala, Costa Rica and El Salvador--that are parties to a peace accord signed last Aug. 8 in Guatemala City.

No Meeting With Ortega

Shultz’s trip apparently would not include a meeting with Nicaragua President Daniel Ortega, whose Marxist-led regime has been battling the U.S.-backed Contras for more than seven years.

“The focus is not on Ortega but on the region,” one official said. “It’s five different countries. It’s not direct negotiations with Daniel Ortega. That’s what Ortega would love to hear.”

Nevertheless, Shultz’s entry into the regional peace effort would signal a major shift in Administration strategy and could be a first step toward direct U.S. involvement in bilateral talks with Nicaragua’s Sandinista regime, one official predicted.

The Administration has strongly opposed direct talks with Nicaragua since an earlier round of such talks collapsed in early 1985, and official U.S. policy holds that the Contra war and other guerrilla fighting in the region are internal matters to be settled by Central Americans.

While voicing official support for the Guatemala City peace accord, the Administration has assigned only a mid-level State Department official, Ambassador Morris Busby, to monitor regional peace efforts.

However, a decision to send Shultz--the highest-ranking U.S. foreign policy official--to the region “gets (the United States) hooked into the process” and eventually could relegate Nicaragua’s four democratic neighbors to the sidelines in peace talks, one U.S. official predicted.

Ortega has long demanded face-to-face peace talks with the United States, which he contends is solely responsible for the Contras’ survival as a fighting force.

In a letter to Reagan made public Monday by the Nicaraguan Embassy, Ortega wrote that the Contra war “has left more than 25,000 of my countrymen dead, and the number grows every day. Isn’t it time to say: Enough! ?

‘Possible to Be Friends’

“To be sure, Nicaragua and the United States have their present differences. But I am convinced that none of them is irreconcilable,” Ortega wrote. “It is not only possible for our two countries to coexist, it is possible to be friends, even partners. This is my government’s and my own personal, profound desire.”

Ortega said that his “one demand” is that the United States immediately end all support for the Contras and respect “the sovereignty, territorial integrity and political independence of Nicaragua.”

A White House official dismissed the letter, saying it “doesn’t contain anything that hasn’t been stated publicly by the Sandinistas.”

In his State of the Union speech Monday, President Reagan said Nicaragua’s neighbors agree that the Ortega regime has not met the terms of the Guatemala accord, which call for democratic reforms, amnesties, the release of political prisoners and talks aimed at ending the fighting in those nations where guerrilla movements are active.

The Nicaragua regime has freed some of its estimated 9,000 political prisoners, agreed to begin direct peace talks with Contra leaders and lifted a state of emergency that had suspended certain civil liberties.

The Guatemala City accord also demands an end to outside aid to guerrilla forces such as the Contras, but the White House and some members of Congress argue that Nicaragua’s willingness to continue reforms rests on continued military pressure by the U.S.-backed rebels.

‘Mutual Desire for Peace’

“The Sandinistas again have promised reforms; their challenge is to take irreversible steps toward democracy,” Reagan said. “On Wednesday, my request to sustain the freedom fighters will be submitted, which reflects our mutual desire for peace, freedom and democracy in Nicaragua.

“I ask Congress to pass this request; let us be for the people of Nicaragua what Lafayette, Pulaski and Von Steuben were for our forefathers and the cause of American independence.”

In the Democratic reply to Reagan’s speech, House Speaker Jim Wright (D-Tex.), the leading congressional opponent of Contra aid, said that the regional peace process has long been under way and deserves a chance to succeed.

“Mr. President, so long as there is any measurable progress toward solving that conflict at the table, I think you and I should give peace a chance,” he said.

Tailoring Aid Plan

Which side will prevail will likely be decided by the House in its upcoming vote on the Contra aid issue, the first direct showdown between supporters and foes of military aid for the rebels in 1 1/2 years.

Republicans in the Administration and Congress said Monday that the White House aid proposal is being tailored to make it virtually impossible for congressional moderates to reject.

An escrow account for military aid, a key part of that tailoring, has been proposed in the past as a means of pressing the Ortega regime toward reforms while not directly aiding the Contras’ military effort inside Nicaragua.

A State Department official said that the escrow package is part of an overall attempt “to go more than the last mile” to make Contra aid “palatable” to undecided lawmakers.

But officials were reluctant to discuss details of the proposal. It apparently calls for Congress to approve military aid to the rebels, but for the aid to be withheld until the Administration, apparently through Shultz, certifies that Nicaragua is not sincerely pursuing peace with the Contras or its neighbors.

Wright has said that such an aid package would not be acceptable unless Congress or Central American officials were in charge of certification. A State Department official Monday called such an arrangement “highly unlikely,” saying that Reagan would refuse on constitutional grounds to cede his control of already-approved military aid.

To that, a Wright spokesman replied Monday: “As long as it’s controlled by the Administration, we can beat ‘em.”

Previous Aid

The Contra forces currently are subsisting on arms hoarded from a $100-million allocation of military and humanitarian aid that expired last October, and on several million dollars in humanitarian aid approved by Congress in December.

The Administration planned last autumn to seek $270 million for the Contras over an 18-month period but scaled that figure back earlier this month in the face of faltering congressional support--first to $100 million, then to about $50 million.

On Monday, officials said that the money sought for the Contras would be $40 million or less, to be doled out until a new aid request is submitted in late July.

“There is no need” for the $270 million, one White House official said Monday. “There’s enough in the pipeline to tide these guys over.”

Compromise Measure

The timetable of the Administration’s request was set in a compromise measure approved late last year to permit the Contras to survive until longer-term funding could be made available. Under that compromise, the President has until Wednesday to submit his spending plan. The planned House vote Feb. 3 will offer no opportunities for amendments, and if it approves the request, the Senate would vote Feb. 4.

Although a group of moderate Democrats has sought a delay in the vote, neither the White House nor the Democratic leadership in Congress has expressed any interest in postponing the confrontation.

“The Administration asked for an up-or-down vote and that’s what we’re hoping to have to settle this once and for all,” said a senior aide to the House Democratic leadership.