Shultz Plans to Keep Diplomatic Pressure on the Sandinista Regime

Secretary of State George P. Shultz, seeking to reverse a decline in U.S. influence in Central America, announced Friday that he is planning a new round of airborne diplomacy to press the Reagan Administration’s campaign against the leftist government of Nicaragua.

“We have kind of stood back from the diplomatic process to a certain degree,” Shultz told reporters at the end of a three-day tour of Central America. “There’s been a sense that we ought to get into this in a little more visible way, so that’s what I’m doing.”

Shultz said he plans to return to Central America on Aug. 1 for a meeting with the foreign ministers of the four U.S. allies in the region, El Salvador, Honduras, Guatemala and Costa Rica. Aides said Shultz also plans at least one more trip to the area before the end of the year.

Contra Policy Unsuccessful

The new emphasis on diplomacy reflects a growing recognition among Administration officials that their policy on Nicaragua, which previously centered on the guerrilla war against the Managua regime by the Contras, has failed to achieve the results they sought, Shultz aides said.

The new diplomatic campaign is intended both to improve the Administration’s chances of winning new aid from Congress for the Contras and to allow President Reagan to leave office without suffering a clear defeat in Central America, they said.

Shultz said he considers it “a tragedy” that Congress has refused to provide military aid to the Contras, but he acknowledged that “we work with the things that we have to work with.”

Officials traveling with Shultz said the Administration plans a series of stepped-up contacts with its four allies in the region--Costa Rica, El Salvador, Honduras and Guatemala--to produce joint demands to press on Nicaragua’s Sandinista government.

Wants Something Concrete

“If you negotiate with (the Sandinistas), their word doesn’t mean anything,” Shultz said. “You have to have something that is concrete and do-able, like a schedule, if you want to get anywhere.”

The United States and its allies have demanded that the Sandinistas move toward more internal democracy and stop amassing Soviet-supplied weapons, but they have set no joint deadlines. The Managua government has demanded that the United States first halt its aid to the Contras.

The Administration is considering sending Congress a new request for Contra aid, but a spokesman for Shultz said that no definite figure has yet been decided.

Shultz has used his three-day trip through the capitals of the four U.S. allies to marshal the Central Americans to put increased diplomatic pressure on Nicaragua. He also met with Contra leaders and with elements of Nicaragua’s unarmed internal opposition, but he did not visit Nicaragua or meet with any Sandinista officials.

The hands-on diplomacy is reminiscent of Shultz’s unsuccessful attempt this year to promote a new peace plan in the Middle East. Shultz visited Israel and its Arab neighbors five times in four months, with few visible results.

In public statements during his Central American tour, Shultz has talked increasingly not of winning the Reagan Administration’s campaign to dislodge the Sandinista regime, but of improving the U.S. position in the area for the next occupant of the White House.

Mythological Comparison

Last week, in remarks to a group of teachers in Washington, Shultz compared himself to Sisyphus, the figure in Greek mythology who was condemned to push a boulder to the top of a mountain only to see it roll down again.

“I see my job as bringing the rock as far up the mountain as I can and parking it for the next guy,” a member of the audience quoted Shultz as saying.

Administration officials disagree on the reasons for the failure of past policy in the case of Nicaragua. Some blame Congress for cutting off the Contras’ military aid, and others believe the rebels were never equal to the task they set for themselves, with U.S. backing. But almost all have finally agreed that only increased diplomatic action can reverse a trend in which the United States has been increasingly unable to influence events in the area.

The Administration will continue to ask Congress for renewed aid to the Contras, officials said, but the policy will no longer rely entirely on the rebels’ ability to put military pressure on the Sandinistas.

$30-Million Proposal

Contra leaders who met Thursday evening with Shultz in Guatemala said they were working with supporters in the Senate on a proposed aid package of $30 million or more.

Under the proposal, Congress would be asked to approve non-military aid to the Contras of about $7 million a month from September through next March, plus an additional $7 million in military aid to be held in escrow in case the Sandinistas break off negotiations.

The last of several rounds of peace talks between the Sandinistas and the Contras broke off June 9. The Contras have said they will refuse to enter into further negotiations until their position is strengthened by financial aid from the United States and diplomatic support from the other Central American nations.

Contra leader Adolfo Calero told reporters that Shultz supports the plan. “There’s no doubt in my mind that he’s enthusiastic about it, very enthusiastic,” Calero said.

But Shultz’s spokesman, Charles Redman, said Shultz has not endorsed any specific aid plan. “No numbers were mentioned by anybody in the meeting with the secretary,” Redman said.

A key part of the proposal under discussion, Calero said, would extend aid to the Contras through next March, in effect keeping the rebels and the issue alive for the winner of November’s presidential election to deal with.

Calero and U.S. officials said they expect the proposal to be introduced in some form by Sens. Ernest F. Hollings (D-S.C.), Gordon Humphrey (R-N.H.) and David L. Boren (D-Okla.), chairman of the Senate Intelligence Committee.

But aides to House Speaker Jim Wright (D-Tex.) have warned that it will be virtually impossible to schedule a House vote on Contra aid before September, apparently dooming almost any plan.

Shultz, recognizing that U.S. allies in Central America fear being abandoned by the United States if the Contras collapse, spent much of his tour reassuring officials that American military protection of their governments will continue, no matter who is elected to the White House in November.

“The United States will not tolerate the subversion or destabilization of the democratic governments of Central America,” he said at his news conference here. “Such an act, direct or indirect, is a threat to the security interests of the United States of America. It will be resisted by all appropriate means, including military cooperation in the collective self-defense of the democracies.”