Democrats Warn They May Drop Soviet Aid Package : Congress: Party leaders say the $1-billion assistance program is doomed unless Bush offers more support.

Democratic congressional leaders, facing a growing rebellion ignited by Republicans, said Thursday night they will be forced to drop a $1 billion Soviet aid package from a $291 billion defense bill unless President Bush offers more than “tepid and ineffectual” support.

The plan to provide humanitarian aid this winter and to help the Soviet military convert to civilian production has gotten caught in a mushrooming partisan brawl over whether enough is being done to meet domestic needs in the lingering recession.

As Democrats bashed Bush for traveling abroad and blocking jobless benefits at home, Republicans retaliated with assaults on the Democratic-sponsored Soviet aid package, protesting that the funds should be spent in this country.

At a hastily called news conference, House Majority Leader Richard A. Gephardt (D-Mo.), Armed Services Committee Chairman Les Aspin (D-Wis.) and Rep. Lee H. Hamilton (D-Ind.) said that strong GOP opposition to the aid proposal would make it politically impossible for Democrats to supply nearly all the votes needed for passage of the 1992 defense authorization bill.

“If the President comes out in support and says, ‘I need this,’ it will go a long way toward dampening the rhetoric on the Republican side,” Aspin said. Otherwise, he added, the package is dead.

In a separate statement, Senate Armed Services Committee Chairman Sam Nunn (D-Ga.), who co-wrote the aid proposal with Aspin, acknowledged there are serious problems caused by “strong Republican opposition . . . tepid and ineffectual White House support and jurisdictional concerns raised by some Democrats.”

Contending that the aid would pay “dramatic dividends” by encouraging the Soviets to demobilize, Nunn said he will confer with Aspin and key senators next week to decide whether to retain, delete or modify the package.

Senate Minority Leader Bob Dole (R-Kan.) and other GOP senators told Defense Secretary Dick Cheney on Thursday that Republicans would not vote for the defense bill if it retained the Soviet aid provision, which gives the President discretion to use up to $1 billion in Pentagon funds.

The money would be used for distributing food and medicine and for a number of military conversion programs, including the retraining of Soviet officers and weapons scientists.

Cheney, along with Bush’s national security adviser, Brent Scowcroft, and his budget director, Richard A. Darman, had negotiated the package secretly with Nunn and Aspin. The two lawmakers sprang it on surprised defense bill negotiators just as final details were being wrapped up last week.

“It’s more than a little hypocritical for Democrats to be floating a golden parachute for Communist airmen when at the same time they are bashing the President for not caring about unemployed Americans,” said Dole’s press secretary, Walt Riker. He added that Cheney has indicated that “the Administration was having second thoughts about getting in bed with that provision.”

Republican senators and House members led the attack on the aid package in floor speeches and press releases, but some Democrats also joined in.

Sen. Christopher J. Dodd (D-Conn.) said, “There are thousands of people in my state alone who have been laid off within the defense industry. . . . It would be an extremely difficult proposal to present to the American people when we have the resources to provide $1 billion to the Soviet Union when our own people are feeling the incredible pressures of unemployment, housing and health care.”

Aspin, arguing that humanitarian aid would help ward off chaos and instability in the Soviet Union, called the proposal “an honest-Injun attempt to do the right thing in a nonpolitical way.”

He said it was inevitable that the United States would feel compelled to send some humanitarian aid this winter and that the defense budget was the most realistic source for paying transportation and distribution costs.