Reagan Orders U.S. Troops to Honduras : Sending 3,200 More GIs as Show of Force in Response to Incursion by Nicaraguans

President Reagan ordered 3,200 additional U.S. troops to Honduras on Wednesday as a show of force in response to a Nicaraguan incursion into the country, the White House announced.

White House spokesman Marlin Fitzwater said units of the 7th Infantry Division based at Ft. Ord, Calif., and the 82nd Airborne Division based at Ft. Bragg, N.C., are leaving for Honduras today on “an emergency deployment readiness exercise.”

“This exercise is a measured response designed to show our staunch support to the democratic government of Honduras at a time when its territorial integrity is being violated by the Cuban- and Soviet-supported Sandinista army,” Fitzwater said at a late-evening briefing for reporters.

He said the troops, which will join an estimated 2,000 U.S. soldiers already deployed in Honduras, will not be sent “to any area of ongoing hostilities.”

Should Provide Support

The spokesman quoted President Reagan as saying: “When friends ask for our support, we should provide it.”

Honduran President Jose Azcona Hoyo formally requested U.S. military assistance in a meeting with U.S. Ambassador Everett Briggs on Wednesday evening, Fitzwater said. Azcona asked for the troops to deter Nicaragua’s forces from advancing farther into Honduras after they crossed the border to attack bases of the U.S.-backed Contras, he said.

When asked how U.S. troops could deter a Sandinista advance by staying out of combat areas, Fitzwater said, “Their very presence, which carries with it certain implications, is a deterrent.”

Other officials said Azcona also asked for additional U.S. helicopters to carry Honduran units into the battle zone, along the Coco River in a remote jungle region about 140 miles east of the capital of Tegucigalpa. One official said there were indications that the Honduran army plans to mount a counterattack against the Sandinistas if the Nicaraguan forces do not withdraw today.

Could Airlift Units

Officials said the Administration is willing to airlift the Honduran units but might do the job with the 40 U.S. helicopters already in Honduras.

The White House made its announcement after a long day of rumors and reports of imminent troop movements during which Administration officials repeatedly assured members of Congress that Reagan had made no decision to dispatch new forces to Honduras.

White House Chief of Staff Howard H. Baker Jr., on Capitol Hill Wednesday afternoon, said it was “absolutely not true” that Reagan had ordered troops to move and insisted: “The President has made no decision.”

In fact, aides said, Reagan had already decided in principle to send the troops and was merely waiting for a formal request from Azcona.

In a chorus of denunciations Wednesday, the President and his aides roundly condemned the Nicaraguan incursion into Honduras, which U.S. officials said included an estimated 1,500 Sandinista troops backed by Soviet-supplied helicopters and artillery. The Sandinista attack appeared aimed at destroying the Contras’ main supply depots and their strategic command center, both of which are on the Honduran side of the Coco River.

Security Problem Seen

Secretary of State George P. Shultz said the Sandinista incursion posed “a genuine national security problem for the United States.” Reagan, asked by reporters about the situation, said simply: “Obviously, we’re concerned.”

House Speaker Jim Wright (D-Tex.) said Nicaraguan officials told him that they have ordered their troops to withdraw from Honduran territory. But Fitzwater said: “We have seen no evidence that they are retreating to their own country.”

Fitzwater and other officials said the Sandinista action should prompt Congress to approve renewed U.S. military aid to the Contras. But some members of Congress expressed skepticism at the Administration’s portrayal of the urgency of the situation in Honduras, as well as irritation that plans for troop movements appeared to be under way while they were being denied on Capitol Hill.

Congress rejected military aid last month, but Reagan has said he will continue to seek new funding for the rebels.

U.S. helicopters have ferried Honduran units into battle before--in March and December 1986, after similar Sandinista incursions across the border.

Americans on Maneuvers

American troops have also landed in Honduras repeatedly since 1982 to participate in military exercises that also carried a thinly veiled goal of warning Nicaragua against any action against Honduras.

The nearly 2,000 U.S. troops now in Honduras include 1,100 assigned to the U.S. air base at Palmerola and about 850 on temporary maneuvers.

Both U.S. and Contra officials said the Sandinista offensive, if it succeeds in destroying the rebels’ command center and their main ammunition stores, could deal a serious--if not mortal--blow to the Contra effort. “The main problem is the command and control center,” Contra spokesman Bosco Matamoros said.

“We consider this a very serious breach of regional borders and an offensive act that threatens the stability of all the countries in the region. This is an intrusion into the sovereign territory of Honduras, and it makes a mockery of the Sandinista pledge for complying with the Guatemalan peace plan,” Fitzwater said.

Peace Talks Due

Sandinista and Contra representatives are scheduled to meet Monday in a new round of cease-fire talks stemming from a Central American peace plan signed in Guatemala last August. Matamoros said the Contras intend to attend the meeting despite their apparent perilous situation on the battlefield.

The Sandinistas launched their offensive against the Contras on Tuesday, sending thousands of troops into the Bocay River valley of northern Nicaragua and overrunning the rebels’ main bases there.

The Sandinistas prepared for the offensive with a week of aerial bombing, used multiple rocket launchers and long-range artillery to aid their advance, and ferried troop battalions to the battlefield by helicopter, Matamoros said.

Contra officials said the Sandinista troops appeared to have crossed the border into Honduras in an attempt to encircle some rebel units. Nicaraguan troops have pursued Contra units into Honduran territory several times during the 7-year-long guerrilla war, only to withdraw within days.

A crisis atmosphere gripped official Washington for much of Wednesday, touched off in part by Fitzwater’s declaration in the morning that “at this moment, everything is being considered now, short of invasion.”

But as Administration officials briefed worried members of Congress on their plans, the fears of direct U.S. military action began to dissipate.

Evidence Lacking

Although the Administration’s public statements portrayed Nicaragua as undertaking a large-scale invasion of Honduras, officials appeared unable during a private session with congressional leaders to present evidence that the situation was as dire as it first appeared.

Wright, who spent 1 1/2 hours with Shultz, Baker and Lt. Gen. Colin L. Powell, the White House national security adviser, told reporters: “The Administration is making somewhat unclear references to a crisis.”

The House Speaker, expressing some skepticism about the Administration’s report, said: “I want to have verification and good, solid information.”

He said he is attempting to verify the Administration’s statements “by our own intelligence sources” and that he had sought a report on his own from Honduras and Nicaragua, “to get a good reading.”

Despite the urgent meetings in the White House and in the Capitol throughout the day, Reagan’s plans for requesting new aid for the Contras remained uncertain, with White House officials, the State Department and Wright all saying the Administration had not yet set its course. The previous package of aid to the rebels ended Feb. 29.

Wright, who has played a central role in opposing the Administration’s request for military aid for the Contras but sought unsuccessfully to win approval earlier this month for a package of non-lethal assistance, said: “We are amenable to hearing what they have to say now, and working something out.”

‘Highly Suspicious’

But Sen. Christopher J. Dodd (D-Conn.) said he was “highly suspicious of the Administration’s motives,” adding that “using this kind of invasion as a way to justify increased military assistance for the Contras is more hype than reality.”

And California Rep. Tony Coelho (D-Merced), the House majority whip, complained that the Administration officials were unable to provide evidence about the intentions of the Nicaraguan troops that crossed into Honduras.

“The problem we have with the White House is that history is replete with cases of misleading both the Congress and the people,” Coelho said. “We told the secretary we want to believe him but we are getting conflicting information.”

Among Reagan’s supporters, Rep. Trent Lott (R-Miss.), the House minority whip, told reporters: “The facts are clear. The Sandinistas are in Honduras. There is an attack going on, affecting the freedom fighters. Their target is to destroy the resistance supplies within Honduras.”

California Rep. Robert K. Dornan (R-Garden Grove) declared that Nicaraguan President Daniel Ortega “has spit in Jim Wright’s face. How many times can this little communist thug slap Jim Wright around before he stands up like a Texan?”

But one Administration official was cynical. “If the Sandinistas are smart, they’ll get out tonight, and we won’t have anything to show for this,” he said. “In 72 hours, nobody will give a damn.”

Times staff writers Josh Getlin and Don Shannon contributed to this story.