Clinton Dispatches Carter to Haiti in Bid to End Crisis : Caribbean: Only hours after officials said military action was ‘imminent,’ the former President, Colin Powell and Sam Nunn are sent to talk leaders into stepping down.

President Clinton, in an extraordinary last-ditch effort to resolve the Haiti crisis peacefully, is dispatching a delegation headed by former President Jimmy Carter to the Caribbean nation to persuade its military dictators to relinquish power.

The White House announced the stunning development Friday afternoon only hours after senior national security officials had said that an invasion by U.S. forces was “imminent” and the President, in a televised address to the nation, had called on the American people to support military action.

Carter, it was learned, has had a series of secret telephone conversations in recent days with Lt. Gen. Raoul Cedras, Haiti’s military leader, and there apparently is a proposal on the table for a peaceful resolution to the crisis--raising new White House hopes of removing the Haitian regime without risking U.S. lives.

The delegation, which is scheduled to fly to the Haitian capital of Port-au-Prince aboard a U.S. military plane today and meet with the generals over the weekend, includes retired Army Gen. Colin L. Powell, former chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff; Sen. Sam Nunn (D-Ga.), chairman of the Senate Armed Services Committee, and members of the Administration’s national security team.

The new diplomatic initiative could lengthen what had been understood to be a very short timetable for military action to restore Haiti’s democratically elected president, Jean-Bertrand Aristide. But officials insisted that it does not represent a change of policy or give the Haitian regime significantly more room for maneuver and delay. The delegation has “a very, very short time frame” in which to accomplish its mission, one senior official said.

Carter and his colleagues will be authorized to discuss with the Haitians only the means of their departure, the official said. If the leaders are serious about negotiating safe passage out of Haiti and sanctuary in another country, he added, their conversation will be short.

The official specifically ruled out a proposal--for which Nunn once expressed support--under which Cedras’ departure would be tied to new elections in Haiti.

Asked if he could give assurances that the mission would not lead to some sort of dilution of Clinton’s insistence that the generals leave unconditionally, the official said: “Yes, yes, yes, yes. I can assure you of that.”

Clinton’s last-minute decision--after telling the military dictators in his address to the nation Thursday: “Leave now or we will force you from power”--left a massive military force assembled for an invasion sitting idle off the Haitian coast.

Administration officials said that the forces, including more than 20 ships and about 20,000 personnel, are still poised to swing into action if the Carter mission fails.

“No policy--nothing--has changed since the President’s statement last night,” an official said. “Nothing in this changes either the urgency of the situation or the timetable of our military preparations.”

White House officials described the new move as an outgrowth of a process that began with the talks between Carter and Cedras.

Early Thursday, Carter informed Clinton that Cedras might be interested in meeting with Carter. Over the next 36 hours, Clinton, Carter, Nunn, Powell and National Security Adviser Anthony Lake conferred repeatedly in an attempt to nail down a plan.

Powell apparently knows Cedras from past contacts. And the fact that Powell is a widely respected military figure who headed the Joint Chiefs during the George Bush Administration lends an element of bipartisanship to the endeavor. An Administration official said that Nunn, who opposes Clinton’s plan for an invasion, will tell the Haitian leaders that congressional opposition--vociferous and widespread as it has been--would be no bar to an invasion.

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Appearing Friday at a charity fund-raising dinner in Macon, Ga., Nunn didn’t seem optimistic about a diplomatic solution. “I hope we can bring about some resolution,” he said. “I think the odds are against it, but I hope so in spite of it all.”

“We are making the trip to solve the crisis without the loss of a single Haitian or American life,” Powell said Friday night in Ashland, Ohio, where he spoke at a fund-raiser at Ashland University.

Accompanying Carter, Nunn and Powell will be Lawrence Rossin, the National Security Council’s point man on Haiti, and Maj. Gen. Jared Bates, the chief assistant to Lt. Gen. John Sheehan, director of operations for the Pentagon’s joint staff.

In Congress, most Republicans and many Democrats oppose Clinton’s policy. And when Congress meets next week, there undoubtedly will be pressure for a vote on whether to support an invasion.

A senior Administration official, commenting on the prominent stature of the members of the Carter delegation, said that “dignity” is an important factor for the Haitian leaders. “It is important to them who they surrender their swords to,” he said, speaking on the condition that he not be named.

Asked why formal talks are needed if the only subject is the military leaders’ departure, a senior official said: “The way in which they would depart is not a simple thing. There are a lot of issues involved in the manner of their departure, which I would prefer not to go into because we need to discuss it with them.”

On Friday, Panama said it would grant political asylum to Cedras if that would prevent a U.S. invasion. “We would give him asylum with pleasure, but not after an invasion,” President Ernesto Perez Balladares said.

Clinton and Carter had been conferring off and on about the Haiti crisis for some time, sources said. Their conversations became more urgent after Carter returned Tuesday to Atlanta from a two-week visit in Africa just as U.S. forces began massing off the Haitian coast.

The former Georgia governor was a natural emissary as Clinton sought to avoid an unpopular step--a step one informed source said the President himself had privately expressed misgivings about taking. Carter served as the official monitor for the 1990 election when Haitians chose Aristide, who served as president only nine months before being ousted by the military.

Carter’s contacts with Cedras, according to one official, were one of several possible “channels” to the Haitian leadership that the Administration had been using without being sure whether any of them would work. “A number of avenues were pursued,” he said.

There were indications that the makeup of Carter’s delegation was shaped in part by a newspaper opinion article by Joseph H. Blatchford, a Washington lawyer and former Peace Corps director.

Blatchford urged that Clinton name Carter to head a delegation to Haiti and suggested that Powell be included in the group. The piece, published on The Times’ Op-Ed page last Tuesday under the headline “Another 11th-Hour Job for Jimmy Carter,” was read that day by the former President, sources say, and ultimately affected the selection of Clinton’s emissaries.

“Say what you will about the Carter presidency, his Camp David accords brought peace between Israel and Egypt,” wrote Blatchford, who served in the Richard Nixon Administration. “His Panama Canal treaty was a major leap forward in U.S.-Latin American relations, and as ex-President, his initiative to force the Sandinistas to call elections brought democracy back to Nicaragua. The returns aren’t yet in on his mission to North Korea, but so far it has proved useful to all sides.”

Clinton, pressing his case for public support for the invasion plan only hours before the White House announced the Carter mission, told a group of journalists that he had been encouraged by indications that his speech Thursday had resulted in the U.S. public being “more supportive.”

White House officials cited overnight polls showing increased public support after the speech. One poll by USA Today/CNN/Gallup of 371 people who viewed the speech showed support for an invasion up from 40% to 56%.

Clinton noted that 24 nations have now joined the United States in an international coalition in support of an invasion if it becomes necessary and said, “I think we’ll have more before very long.” Most are small Caribbean nations, but the coalition includes Britain, Belgium, the Netherlands, Israel and Jordan as well.

Clinton was interviewed when he appeared at a high-level briefing arranged for the journalists in the Roosevelt Room of the White House.

Secretary of State Warren Christopher and five other senior officials who spoke on condition they not be identified directly conducted the briefing.

Usually known for his direct personal engagement with interviewers, Clinton appeared tired and somewhat distracted as he stood answering questions.

“Are you nervous?” about the decision to press ahead against the generals, a journalist asked.

“Am I nervous? No, I feel good about it. I don’t know if good is the right word. I think the policy is right, and I think that I have done the best I could to present it to the American people and we have done the best we could to prepare. And I have enormous confidence in the work that others have done. . . .

“We don’t live in a risk-free world, and there are risks associated with anything we did or didn’t do. But I think we’re doing the right thing and I think we have the right people doing the right thing. That’s all I could ever ask for. And I’ve made the decision, so if it doesn’t go right, I’m responsible.”

There was no hint then that any last-minute effort might be made to stave off an invasion. In fact, the lengthy session focused mostly on how the United States intended to invade Haiti with minimal casualties on both sides.

A national security official said that there would be an “overwhelming force” to minimize casualties, accomplish the mission quickly and permit U.S. troops to come home as soon as possible.

Christopher said that after Clinton’s speech Thursday night, “you’re going to find support for this growing not only among the American people but on Capitol Hill as well.”

He said that the Administration already had conducted 75 briefings on Haiti with members of Congress and was continuing to follow a heavy briefing schedule on Capitol Hill.

But he said the Administration has no plans to ask Congress to support the invasion plan. He pointed out that President Ronald Reagan did not seek formal congressional support for invading Grenada and that President Bush did not seek it before invading Panama.

“And I think it’s appropriate for the President to exercise his authority as commander-in-chief in the situation, but to comply with the authorities in Congress that are effective as we move through the situation.”

White House officials invited Caribbean prime ministers to the White House to help them make the case for the U.S. action.

Eugenia Charles of Dominica, who played an identical public role for Reagan a decade ago in support of the invasion of Grenada, said:

“We’re determined that we should retain democracy in our part of the world. It’s very important to realize, as small as we are, poor as we are, and with a population so little, that we do stand for all the good things that the world wants in their countries. And we believe that we must assist the Haitians to regain their democracy.”

Charles dismissed the idea advanced by some Republicans that, unlike Grenada, in this case U.S. interests are not at stake. “I’m not even sure your national interest was involved in Grenada. I am never quite sure what the American national interest is, frankly,” she said.

“I know what our national interest is, and I think we want peace and democracy in our area,” she added. “And I will hope that the United States would feel it was not so far distant from our area; that in fact they share some of the same seas we share, and there, they should have some of the concerns that we have.”

Administration officials sought to rebut charges that Aristide was a radical who would impose his own dictatorship on Haiti if returned to power.

“I think President Aristide understands the dynamics of the marketplace and market economies, and that the way to grow is to have individual freedoms, free markets,” said William H. Gray III, Clinton’s special adviser on Haiti.

“I think he is clearly aware that in this hemisphere, as well as throughout the world village, other forms of economic and political organizations have been in deep despair and in trouble and many of them have fallen under their own weight.”

Sandy Berger, Clinton’s deputy national security adviser, said Aristide “understands extremely well that it is not in his interest or in the interest of Haiti for there to be a period of recrimination.”

Berger said Aristide probably would not return to Haiti until several days after U.S. forces occupy the island, which they are expected to do whether or not the military regime steps down voluntarily.

“Obviously that depends to some degree on the conditions on the ground,” he said.

Times staff writer David Lauter contributed to this article.

* HOPEFUL REFUGEES: Haitian refugees living in Los Angeles are cautiously hopeful. B1