Bush to Name Democrat to Key Latin Policy Job

President Bush, in a bid for new bipartisanship on the divisive issue of Nicaragua, has taken the unusual step of selecting a moderate Democrat to be assistant secretary of state for Latin America, Administration officials and members of Congress said Tuesday.

The chosen nominee for the often-controversial post is Bernard Aronson, a former aide to President Jimmy Carter and Vice President Walter F. Mondale who has publicly supported military aid to Nicaragua’s rebels, the officials said.

Aronson’s selection conforms with earlier reports that Bush and Secretary of State James A. Baker III plan to seek bipartisan support for a new diplomatic effort to negotiate an end to the seven-year war in Nicaragua.

Wright Optimistic

In a parallel development Tuesday, House Speaker Jim Wright (D-Tex.) added his support to the quest for a less partisan approach to foreign policy, declaring after a meeting with Bush and Baker that he is newly optimistic that a joint approach can be found to seek a peaceful settlement of the Nicaraguan conflict.

Saying he believes that Bush “will start moving in a new direction that will be more productive and find an avenue we can walk together,” Wright pledged to work with the new Administration to seek consensus on foreign policy issues.

As a token of good will, Wright announced in a luncheon meeting with reporters that he had dropped plans for reintroducing a bill that would require the President to notify Congress of covert actions within 48 hours, a move Bush had sought.

Wright spoke after Bush met with Democratic and Republican congressional leaders at the Capitol to discuss ways of achieving more bipartisanship in foreign policy.

The Speaker and the Democratic majority in Congress frequently battled with the Ronald Reagan Administration over its support for the Nicaraguan Contras, who fought to overthrow their nation’s leftist regime.

But Bush, in his inaugural address, said that he hoped to return to the earlier tradition of bipartisanship in foreign policy, “when . . . our differences ended at the water’s edge.”

Bush has not yet formally nominated Aronson to direct the Administration’s policies in Latin America, but Baker notified him Monday that he has been chosen to succeed Elliott Abrams in the post, a knowledgeable source said.

Avoiding Polarization

“Jim Baker is very committed to a bipartisan policy in Central America,” a Baker aide said. “He believes the only way to approach this problem is to avoid the polarization we’ve seen in the past.”

The selection of Aronson drew praise from several Democrats and Republicans in Congress but unfriendly reactions from two senior members of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee at opposite ends of the ideological spectrum.

“It’s an excellent choice,” said conservative Sen. John S. McCain (R-Ariz.). “It signals to me that George Bush has backed up his eloquent words about bipartisan foreign policy with concrete steps.”

“I have a lot of respect for Bernie Aronson,” said Sen. Bill Bradley (D-N.J.). “He is somebody who cares a lot about freedom and democracy and human rights . . . and he’s a straight shooter.”

But an aide to Sen. Jesse Helms (R-N.C.), the senior Republican on the 20-member Foreign Relations Committee--which must approve all senior State Department nominations--said that Helms is not pleased with the prospect of Aronson’s selection.

“He’s a Carterite. He’s not a Republican. I can’t imagine any Republican supporting this guy,” said the aide, James P. Lucier. “He’s just a zero as far as we’re concerned. We’re strongly opposed to it.”

And Sen. Christopher J. Dodd (D-Conn.), a liberal member of the committee, issued what an aide described as a deliberately “chilly” statement noting only that Dodd has not met with Aronson and cannot comment on his qualifications.

McCain acknowledged that Aronson could run into “tremendous resistance,” especially from conservatives, and declared: “But that can be overcome.”

He said that he believes the Bush Administration will launch a new diplomatic drive to pressure Nicaragua’s Sandinista regime toward extending internal democracy, removing Soviet and Cuban advisers and reducing the size of Managua’s Soviet-equipped armed forces. “And then, if there’s no progress . . . we would consider resumption of military aid (to the Contras) as leverage,” McCain said.

Aronson, 42, was an assistant to the president of the United Mine Workers union before he joined Mondale’s vice presidential staff in 1977. He worked as a speech writer for both Mondale and Carter and became a private political consultant when Reagan replaced Carter as President in 1981.

In 1985, he joined a small group of centrist Democrats who worked with Reagan Administration officials to seek a bipartisan consensus in favor of military aid to the Contras.

And in June, 1986, after Reagan failed to win support for Contra aid with a series of hard-line speeches, the Democratic Aronson drafted a more conciliatory speech for the Republican President--a speech that the White House credited with helping to win a key congressional vote on Contra aid.

Aronson would be only the second registered Democrat named to a senior position in the Bush Administration. Education Secretary Lauro F. Cavazos is also a Democrat.

House Speaker Wright, in disclosing his decision to drop his bill requiring 48-hour notice to Congress of covert actions, said that he decided on the step after Baker assured him that Bush will abide by the spirit and the letter of current law.

The law now requires advance notification of covert action or, when that is deemed impossible, “timely” notification.

The 48-hour limit bill, which passed the Senate last March by a vote of 71 to 19 but died in the House, was designed to prevent presidents from keeping covert operations secret from congressional leaders, as Reagan did in the sale of arms to Iran in 1985-86.

Wright said that Congress’ intent in providing for “timely notification” of covert acts meant hours or days at most, not weeks or months.

“I hope and trust that it will not be necessary to reintroduce the 48-hour bill in the future--an option that we of course will reserve,” he said.

The decision not to reintroduce the bill, Wright said, was one of three initiatives Democrats are taking as “an opening gesture of good faith on our part” in seeking to promote cooperation.

A task force of House leaders will meet from time to time with Baker, he said, to discuss intelligence matters and ways to ease any potential conflict between the Administration’s legitimate concerns about national security and Congress’ clear responsibility for oversight and accountability.

Also, he said, the task force will meet with Baker to discuss concerns the Administration may have about the effectiveness and applicability of the War Powers Act, which limits the time a President may employ troops in a combat situation without getting approval of Congress.

On the Nicaraguan issue, Wright said that he has met frequently with representatives of both sides of the struggle and believes there is a mutual eagerness to reach a peaceful settlement.

“The conditions there are very, very bad economically and the thing most desired by the people there is normalization of relations with the United States,” he said.

The Bush Administration, Wright said, wants three things in a Nicaraguan settlement and the Democratic leadership agrees with all three.

They are removal of Soviet and Cuban troops, assurances from the Nicaraguan government that it will pose no threat to its neighbors and provisions for a greater degree of human rights and democratic reforms in the country.

Staff writer Don Shannon contributed to this story.