Senate Votes Aid Limits on President : Seeks to Prevent Another Contra Assistance Scandal

The Senate, acting to prevent another Iran-Contra scandal, voted Tuesday to prohibit the President from seeking third-country assistance for insurgencies or other nations that are prohibited by Congress from receiving aid from the United States.

Adopted 57 to 42, the measure was authored by Sen. Daniel Patrick Moynihan (D-N.Y.) and strongly supported by senators who were involved in investigating the Iran-Contra affair. Bush Administration officials oppose it as an unconstitutional usurpation of the President’s power to conduct foreign policy.

The vote was clearly seen by most Republicans as a test of loyalty to President Bush, whose alleged role in seeking assistance from Honduras for the Contras recently drew criticism. Only four Republicans supported the proposal; only one Democrat opposed it.

No Measure From House

So far, no similar measure has been approved in the House.

Moynihan said that the measure, which was offered as an amendment to a bill authorizing foreign aid for fiscal 1990, is necessary to ensure that no future President could circumvent a congressional ban on U.S. aid to a country or insurgency by simply seeking support from third countries that are beholden to the United States.

During the Iran-Contra scandal, the Ronald Reagan Administration skirted the strictures of a law passed by Congress that banned direct U.S. aid to the Nicaraguan resistance fighters, by raising financial aid from such wealthy nations as Saudi Arabia, Taiwan and Brunei as well as other assistance from the neighboring countries of Honduras and Guatemala.

“There is no question about this legislation being necessary,” Moynihan said. “In the two past years, we went through an extended and divisive inquiry into the practices in the executive branch which clearly contravened the will of Congress. . . .”

Protection From Staff

Moynihan said that the measure would also protect the President from the activities of overzealous staff members--an obvious reference to former White House aide Oliver L. North, the central figure in the Iran-Contra scandal.

But Sen. Jesse Helms (R-N.C.) insisted that the measure went too far in limiting the prerogatives of the President. Helms and his fellow conservatives have long made a similar argument about the constitutionality of the congressional ban, authored by former Rep. Edward P. Boland (D-Mass.).

“If Franklin Roosevelt had had to try to prosecute World War II under the restraints by Congress that have been imposed upon the President of the United States in this time by Boland amendments and are proposed to be imposed by the Moynihan amendment, World War II may very well have been lost,” Helms said.

Helms argued that Congress has no power to restrict the President from seeking third-country aid under such circumstances.

“Congress has no constitutional power to prohibit a foreign policy which any President wishes to pursue,” he said. “The President of the United States, under the Constitution, can pursue any foreign policy he wishes if no funds are required to provide economic assistance or weapons or war or armies or the use of agencies of the government.”

But Senate Majority Leader Goerge J. Mitchell (D-Me.), in an impassioned floor speech, strongly disagreed with Helms. He said that the amendment simply instructs the President to obey the law of the land, as enacted by Congress.

“The President of the United States is constrained by law as is every other American,” he insisted. “The President must obey the law and Congress has the authority to make the law. This is a democracy, not a monarchy. The President is not a king.”

‘Modest, Responsible’

In addition, Mitchell questioned why the Administration is opposing the measure, which he characterized as “modest, reasonable, responsible.”

“Does the Administration feel it has the right to circumvent laws duly passed by Congress?” he asked.

Unlike the Boland amendment, Moynihan’s proposal also included criminal penalties for those who violate it--including a jail sentence of up to five years. The Administration’s opposition appeared to be based largely on fears that an errant State Department official might wind up going to jail for mistakenly discussing any proscribed assistance with the representative of a third country.

In a letter to Helms, Undersecretary of State Lawrence S. Eagleburger said that the effect would be to prevent “in some instances with criminal penalties, any encouragement by U.S. government officers or employees (including members of Congress) of any assistance by anyone for virtually any activities in the specified country.”

Republicans voting for the Moynihan amendment were Sens. William S. Cohen of Maine, Dave Durenberger of Minnesota, Warren B. Rudman of New Hampshire and Arlen Specter of Pennsylvania. Sen. Howell Heflin of Alabama was the only Democrat voting against it.

The Senate is not expected to pass the overall foreign aid bill until later this week.