War to Continue Despite Aid Cutoff, Officials Say : Showdown Won’t End Voting on Contra Funds

Six weeks ago, when congressional leaders and the Reagan Administration set the ground rules for Wednesday’s vote on aid to the Nicaraguan rebels, many on both sides talked about a final showdown, an up-or-down vote to decide the long-festering issue once and for all.

As members of the House voted, however, many said that the most important factor in shaping their decision was the simple realization that--regardless of the vote--the aid issue would not go away. A series of additional votes appears certain in the months ahead.

“No matter how we vote,” California Rep. Leon Panetta (D-Monterey) said as the House debate neared its end Wednesday night, “we will face additional votes. We will face additional challenges.”

And increasingly, members of Congress are almost welcoming that prospect, saying the best thing they can do for the Central American peace process is just to keep voting. “It keeps the pressure on both sides,” says Rep. Bill Richardson (D-N.M.), a member of the House Intelligence Committee and a closely watched moderate swing vote on aid to the Contras, who joined the majority in the 219-211 vote that defeated the aid package.

The House Democratic leadership already had pledged to bring its own Central American aid package to a vote within the next few weeks, a pledge House Speaker Jim Wright (D-Tex.) repeated Wednesday night, and some House strategists predict as many as 10 more Contra aid votes before the year is out.

Senators, too, say they expect a continuing series of votes as Congress seeks to exert the maximum amount of pressure on both sides in the Nicaraguan war.

“We could be voting on this every other week,” Sen. Alan K. Simpson (R-Wyo.), said last week. Congress will provide “a running observation platform on the behavior of (Nicaraguan President) Daniel Ortega,” said Simpson, the Senate’s deputy Republican leader.

“It isn’t as if this is the last time,” said Sen. Christopher J. Dodd (D-Conn.), a leading opponent of Contra aid, who had been lobbying House members up until the last moment.

Until very recently, Contra aid generated such extreme emotions that the mere thought of voting on it caused dread on Capitol Hill. The issue was considered politically dangerous for many senators and representatives.

And because the fighting in Nicaragua seemed endless, the issue was also a frustrating one. Except for a relatively small number of deeply committed Contra supporters and their equally committed opponents, most members of Congress said they had little way of telling whether the votes they cast were achieving the results they hoped for.

But the beginning of the Central American peace talks has changed the way Congress looks at the aid question.

“We’re now comfortable” with the issue, said Rep. Nicholas Mavroules (D-Mass.), an opponent of Contra aid. “We have something we can point to.”

That change appears to have made Congress more skeptical of the claims made by both sides in the Nicaraguan war. Liberal opponents of Contra aid openly say, as Mavroules does, “the Administration may not trust Daniel Ortega; neither do I.” Mavroules and other Democrats routinely lace their speeches on Central America with discussions of how to “keep the pressure on the Sandinistas.”

Encouraged by Some Steps

On the other side are Republican supporters of the Contras such as Rep. Matthew J. Rinaldo, who represents a New Jersey district with a large and militant Cuban exile community. “I have to say quite candidly that I’ve been encouraged by some of the steps taken by the Sandinistas” such as the reopening of opposition newspapers and the release of some political prisoners, Rinaldo said.

As a result, many in Congress say, the likelihood of further votes on aid by Congress has become part of the diplomatic process, not a threat to it. This is particularly true, they say, because the Contras have accumulated resources enough to survive the immediate consequences of any setback.

At the same time, the peace talks have reduced the intensity of emotions among both liberal sympathizers of Nicaragua’s Sandinista government and conservative supporters of the Contras. “We can sustain the onslaught of lobbying much better now,” Richardson says, because the political pressures are less intense.

“It’s not a vote-cutting issue anymore,” one on which friendly constituents might turn into opponents, he said.

Few Minds Changed

In fact, despite intense lobbying by Reagan and by senior Democrats, House vote counters say few votes were changed since last week when Reagan announced the details of his aid package.

A few tried the time-honored practice of using key votes to extract pork-barrel concessions from the White House. Rep. Roy Dyson (D-Md.), who has generally supported Contra aid in the past, told Administration officials that he might vote against it this time if the Administration went along with plans to reduce the size of a military installation in his district.

“The ball is in their court,” he told reporters Wednesday morning. “I’m waiting for a phone call.”

By the end of the day, however, Dyson, apparently embarrassed by his public pitch for a local project, changed his mind. In the end, he voted against Reagan.

Administration officials did succeed in swinging the vote of one Republican who had gone against them in the past, Pennsylvania Rep. Thomas J. Ridge, reportedly by promising to drop objections to aid Ridge had sought for Amerasian refugee children.

Reagan also made a pitch to pick up a few uncommitted votes Tuesday night when he bowed to pressure from moderates in both parties and agreed, if his aid request were accepted, to give Congress a role in deciding whether the “lethal” or military portion of the aid package--$3.6 million out of the total of $36.25 million--would be released.

But lobbying by the other side was also intense. One of the most heavily lobbied and closely watched was Rep. Lindy Boggs (D-La.), whose vote Republicans had hoped to win, in large part because every other member of Louisiana’s congressional delegation was supporting the Contras.

Over the last 24 hours, Boggs said after the vote, she had received calls from Reagan, Secretary of State George P. Shultz, Contra leader Adolfo Calero and her state’s two senators, who both support the Contras.

In the end, however, Boggs voted no. Afterwards, she walked out of the House chamber, and seeing a group of Catholic nuns who had been lobbying against Contra aid, walked up to them and hugged each one.

“The sisters are very persuasive,” she said, noting that she had also talked with former House Speaker Thomas P. (Tip) O’Neill Jr., who called several undecided Democrats to ask for them to vote against the aid package.

And the fact that Congress could vote again quickly “to keep the Contras viable” if the peace process stalled was a key factor in her eventual decision, Boggs said.

Not surprisingly, with all the talk of future tests, House members, soon after the vote, began talking about what Reagan would offer next. On Wednesday, moderate Republican members met with Shultz and told him what changes they would like the Administration to make in future aid requests.

“Some of them have not been satisfied with the way the Administration has orchestrated the flow of events,” admitted House Republican leader Robert H. Michel of Illinois.

The moderates objected to the presence of money for “lethal aid”--weapons and ammunition--in the request, as well as to the absence of economic aid for other Central American nations and to the high-profile role in Central American policy played by Elliot Abrams, the Administration’s controversial assistant secretary of state for Latin America.

Abrams Role Questioned

“We told him we felt that Abrams should not have been the point man,” Rep. Raymond J. McGrath (R-N.Y.) said after the meeting with Shultz. Abrams’ role in the Iran-Contra scandal, in which he has admitted testifying untruthfully to a congressional committee, created “a murky cloud over all of this,” McGrath said.

Times staff writer Josh Getlin contributed to this story.