Senators Urge Nicaragua Arms Turn-In : Central America: Dodd and Gramm agree that surrender of weapons by both sides will preserve the peace--and prevent the Salvadoran civil war from flaring up.

Two U.S. senators called on Nicaragua’s Sandinista army and the Contra rebels Saturday to turn in their weapons to help preserve the peace in their own country and to prevent their arsenals from fueling the civil war in El Salvador.

Sens. Christopher Dodd (D-Conn.) and Phil Gramm (R-Tex.) agreed in a broadcast interview that a rapid arms cleanup is necessary to safeguard the new civilian government of President-elect Violeta Barrios de Chamorro, who upset President Daniel Ortega at the polls last week.

Former Contra leader Adolfo Calero and Assistant Secretary of State for Latin America Bernard Aronson, appearing on the same program as Dodd and Gramm, emphasized the need for government guarantees to ensure the peaceful integration of about 10,000 former guerrillas into Nicaraguan society.

Dodd, chairman of a Senate Foreign Relations subcommittee on hemisphere affairs, and Gramm, a leading conservative, said that unless weapons in Central America’s most heavily armed nation are carefully accounted for, they may find their way to El Salvador.

“Programs that have both the military and Contras turn in their weapons are very important,” Gramm said on Cable News Network’s “Newsmaker Saturday” program.

In the past, Salvadoran anti-government guerrillas have received major support from the Sandinistas. There have also been unconfirmed reports that despite their ideological differences, the U.S.-supplied Contras have sold weapons to the Salvadoran rebels.

Although Contra leaders have refused to order their troops to turn in their weapons before the 70,000 soldiers of the Sandinista-controlled army are disarmed, Chamorro and President Bush have urged them to do so. Bush, in fact, differed publicly with former President Ronald Reagan over the issue during a meeting between the two in Los Angeles on Friday.

Harry Shlaudeman, a retired U.S. ambassador to Brazil who now serves as a special State Department representative on Central American affairs, was in Tegucigalpa, Honduras, this weekend seeking to persuade Contra leaders to leave their Honduran camps.

At one time, Reagan Administration officials had proposed offering U.S. refugee status to Contras. Dodd, however, discounted that possibility.

“I don’t think there’s going to be much appetite to come up with green cards,” he said. “They’ve got to (go) back home.”

While both Dodd and Gramm warned of fiscal limitations on U.S. economic aid for Nicaragua, Aronson said the Administration wants to “move very quickly” on a support package similar to the assistance offered to Panama after the U.S. invasion.

“There are some immediate steps we’re looking at,” he said, citing removal of the trade embargo imposed by the Reagan Administration as one example.

Aronson said he will meet Monday with Francisco Mayorga, Chamorro’s chief economic adviser. On Friday, Mayorga said in Managua that the new government will ask for at least $300 million in U.S. aid.

But Gramm warned that Washington cannot foot the entire bill.

“It’s clear that we can’t rebuild Nicaragua with American aid,” declared the co-author of the Gramm-Rudman-Hollings deficit reduction act. “I’d be willing to offer Nicaragua a free-trade agreement.”

One possible source of aid to Nicaragua was identified in a General Accounting Office report released Saturday by Sen. Edward M. Kennedy (D-Mass.). The report said $685 million in aid to El Salvador has not been delivered, making it potentially available for other uses.