U.S. Will Send Senior Officials to Assess Reconstruction Needs : Support: The high-level mission will be a visible sign of Washington’s concern for rebuilding. It will also demonstrate backing for Panama’s new president.

The Bush Administration will send a delegation of senior officials to Panama City next week to assess Panama’s reconstruction needs and to demonstrate Washington’s support for the new president, Guillermo Endara, U.S. officials said Friday.

White House Press Secretary Marlin Fitzwater said the group will be led by Deputy Secretary of State Lawrence S. Eagleburger and Deputy Treasury Secretary John Robson. The visit will begin Wednesday, Fitzwater said.

The high-level delegation’s visit is intended to provide a visible show of concern by the Administration for rebuilding Panama’s infrastructure in the wake of the recent U.S. invasion to depose strongman Manuel A. Noriega and to bolster the prestige of the new Endara government.

Sources said several members of Congress also have expressed interest in sending a separate congressional delegation to Panama, but that apparently will be put off until the situation there is more stable.

The Administration already has begun the painstaking process of unblocking Panamanian assets that the United States froze in March, 1988, when it imposed economic sanctions on the Noriega regime in an effort to oust him.

On Friday, the United States transferred $70 million in previously blocked funds--$50 million of it in cash--to the Endara government to enable Panamanians to cash Social Security and government paychecks that had been issued by the Noriega regime.

U.S. officials said that although the checks were all legitimate, the fear that they might not be good had led to black-market trading of the checks, often at large discounts--a move officials feared could undermine confidence in the new government.

These developments came as an interagency task force continued planning for providing economic aid and advice for reconstruction of Panama’s shattered economy.

Guillermo Chapman, a personal emissary of Endara, is here this week conferring with senior officials of the Administration and of the International Monetary Fund and World Bank, from which the new Panama government also is seeking aid.

The Administration also is sending teams of lower-level officials to work with the Panamanians in assessing the country’s needs. A delegation from the Agency for International Development arrived in Panama City on Thursday to begin a preliminary survey of damage there.

Chapman already has indicated that the Endara government will work to hammer out a long-term economic restructuring program with the IMF and World Bank designed to cut government spending and reduce the government’s role in the economy.

He also has pledged that Panama will liberalize trade and convert government-owned industries to private corporations, as Endara had promised before last May’s elections. Endara apparently won that election by a wide margin, but Noriega blocked an official vote count.

Both U.S. and Panamanian officials first plan to assess the damage Panama suffered from the fighting, fires and looting that occurred after U.S. troops attacked. About 10,000 to 25,000 people have been made homeless there after their houses or apartments were destroyed in the fighting.

Planners then want to figure out how much Panama will need from outside sources such as the IMF and World Bank to help pay its bills and put its economy back on its feet. The country is several billion dollars in arrears on loans and needs $1 billion or so for short-term relief.

U.S. officials also are working to restore trade benefits that Washington retracted then, ranging from duty-free status for goods that Panama exported here to permission to ship sugar and textile exports to this country within the tight U.S. quotas.

However, restoration of these benefits is expected to take several weeks. Virtually all require direct certification that Panama’s new government has restored constitutional order and is cooperating with U.S. authorities in apprehending drug dealers.

They also require formal approval by Congress, which repealed the trade preferences in the first place.