Abrams Leaves State Dept. Job as He Came In--Speaking Out

“I don’t have any regrets at all,” said Elliott Abrams, the Reagan Administration’s least-loved assistant secretary of state.

And to show that he means it, Abrams’ repertoire of malediction remains as rich as ever. His opponents, he says, are “vipers,” President Daniel Ortega of Nicaragua is “a liar” and members of Congress who blocked U.S. aid to Nicaraguan rebels “will have . . . blood on their hands.”

Almost three years ago, Abrams became the Reagan Administration’s chief strategist on Latin America, vowing to bring Nicaragua’s Sandinista regime to its knees. Later, he added Panama’s strongman, Gen. Manuel A. Noriega, to his list.

Abrams left office Friday; he has not sought, nor has he been offered, a job in the Bush Administration. In Nicaragua and Panama, both Ortega and Noriega are still firmly in power. And Abrams admits only one major error: not being tougher.

“When you look back eight years, a mistake was made in 1981 in the approach to this problem (in Nicaragua), which was to try to put it on a middle burner or a back burner,” he said.

“I don’t see where we’ve been able to achieve a sensible negotiated solution unless we’ve placed great pressure on the Communist side,” he said. “And great pressure will be needed now.”

Argument for Use of Force

Does that mean the United States should have intervened in Nicaragua with military force? “You can make a very good argument” for that idea, Abrams told an interviewer recently--the idea that “the President should simply have said, ‘Look, we have to enforce the Monroe Doctrine; we cannot have a Communist government in Nicaragua,’ and (we should have) done whatever we needed to do to get rid of it, including a naval blockade or possibly even an invasion.”

He wasn’t actually proposing an invasion, Abrams explained later--merely offering “a very good argument.”

That has often seemed the essence of Abrams’ stormy diplomatic career: a candid love of argument, a zest for saying things bluntly instead of clinging to Washington’s customary gray euphemisms.

Part of it, friends say, is that Abrams is brilliant--and still believes in his ability to convince others by sheer force of argument. Part of it is that he is a neo-conservative, a former Democrat whose greatest passion is not merely advancing a policy but proving his liberal opponents wrong as well.

The result has been a great divide: a few fiercely loyal and admiring friends, but a great many enemies.

“I’m a charter member of the Elliott Abrams fan club,” said Rep. Henry J. Hyde (R-Ill.), one of the Contras’ champions on Capitol Hill. “It is an elevating experience to find someone who believes in something and is willing to fight for it.”

“Elliott Abrams has done tremendous damage to relations between the executive branch and Congress,” countered Rep. Sam Gejdenson (D-Conn.), a Contra foe. “There’s no question that we didn’t get the truth in our exchanges with him, and that is one of the gravest assaults on the way our system works.”

Hyde and others defend Abrams against the charge of misleading Congress. But even Abrams’ allies acknowledge that his give-no-quarter style did not help broaden support for the Administration’s policies in Central America.

Low ‘Grovel Quotient’

“Diplomacy is the art of the compromise, the art of the possible,” Hyde said. “His virtues to us are vices to others. He wasn’t temperamentally able to back and fill and grovel. To succeed in diplomacy, one’s grovel quotient has to be fairly high--and his wasn’t.”

Inside the State Department, too, assessments of Abrams’ performance are divided. “Elliott’s problem is that he believes too much of his own rhetoric,” one subordinate said. “The policy’s been falling apart, but it took him a long time to recognize it.”

Even Secretary of State George P. Shultz has expressed some regret over the outcome of the Reagan Administration’s policy in Central America. In several recent interviews, Shultz has said the Administration may have missed an opportunity to negotiate with Nicaragua in 1987--when Shultz proposed sending a special envoy to open talks with Managua but Abrams and other Administration hard-liners persuaded President Reagan to block the move.

But Shultz has also stuck doggedly by Abrams despite demands from Democrats in Congress that he be fired. During the Iran-Contra affair, Abrams lied to the Senate Intelligence Committee in an attempt to conceal a State Department effort to raise money for the Contras from foreign governments. He later apologized, but some members of Congress never forgave the offense.

Last fall, Shultz pointedly gave Abrams one of the State Department’s major honors, the Secretary’s Award for Distinguished Service. And two weeks ago, Shultz spoke warmly of Abrams at a farewell ceremony, lauding him as “invaluable,” according to officials who attended.

“I owe Secretary Shultz a debt that I can never repay,” Abrams replied. “But that’s appropriate, since most of the countries I work with (in Latin America) also have debts that can never be repaid,” he quipped, alluding to the vast foreign debts of most of the countries in the region.

Faults Congress

If his goals in Nicaragua were not met, he said, that was the fault of Congress, which cut off military aid to the Contras when they were--in his view--approaching victory. And if the U.S. attempt to topple Noriega failed, he said, that was the fault of others in the Administration who resisted his proposals for action--proposals that reportedly included a plan to kidnap the Panamanian dictator.

Overall, though, Abrams said he views his tenure as a success: for having supported the movement toward democracy in most of the countries of Latin America, for setting a conservative Republican Administration against military dictatorships and for what success he did achieve in supporting the Contras.

“In a sense, what’s remarkable is how well we did, given the polls,” he said. “We have never had a majority for military aid (for the Contras) . . . but Congress voted for it several times.”

And Abrams, still only 40, made it clear that he plans to be back in government after a stint at the conservative Heritage Foundation and some practice as a lawyer and investment banker.