WHITE HOUSE SUSPENDING ITS EFFORT TO SECURE MORE FUNDING FOR 'CONTRAS'

• Document Type: CREST
• Collection: General CIA Records
• Document Number (FOIA) /ESDN (CREST): CIA-RDP90-00965R000201090016-6
• Release Decision: RIPPUB
• Original Classification: K
• Document Page Count: 1
• Document Creation Date: December 22, 2016
• Document Release Date: January 24, 2012
• Sequence Number: 16
• Publication Date: July 28, 1984
• Content Type: OPEN SOURCE

STAT
Declassified in Part - Sanitized Copy Approved for Release 2012/01/24: CIA-RDP9O-00965ROO0201090016-6
ARTICLE APPEARED
QN PAGE 3 A
PHILADELPHIA INQUIRER
28 July 1984
White House suspending its
effort to secure more funding
for `contras'
By Alfonso Chardy
Inquirer Washington Bureau
WASHINGTON - The Reagan ad-
ministration has abandoned for now
its drive for additional CIA covert
aid for Nicaraguan insurgents and
instead will seek increased overt mil-
itary aid for El Salvador, administra-
tion officials and congressional lead-
ers said yesterday.
They noted, however, that the shift
in tactics did not mean that Presi-
dent Reagan was turning away from
the anti-Sandinista counterrevolu-
tionary effort begun by the CIA in
1981.
Senate Majority Leader Howard H.
Baker Jr. (R., Tenn.) and senior
White House aides said that instead
of seeking approval of a CIA request
for $21 million for the rebels in 1984,
the administration would seek $28
million for them in 1985 and a com-
bined total of almost $250 million in
military aid for the Salvadorans in
1984 and 1985.
The new strategy, however, means
that the battle for Nicaraguan aid
could come early in the new fiscal
year, which begins Oct. 1. That could
set the stage for a showdown be-
tween Reagan and Congress shortly
before the presidential election, and
at a time when the Democratic presi-
dential nominee, Walter F. Mondale.
is expected to be campaigning with a
promise to end the Nicaragua pro-
gram.
"The new realism here," said a
White House official, "is that as the
saying goes, you shoot the wolf that
is closest to the sled, and that wolf
now happens to be the supplemental
money for El Salvador and the rest of
the programs for Central America.
We realize that the Nicaragua pro-
gram is very difficult at this time due
to stiff Democratic opposition."
This constitutes a major shift in
administration attitude from last
spring, when the White House re-
quested the $21 million. The adminis-
tration said then that the funds were
desperately needed to resupply the
Nicaraguan rebels, or contras, who at
the time were said to be running out
of ammunition, food, clothing, medi-
cine and cash.
Congressional sources with access
to intelligence information
however, that the administration
was backing away from that request
because it had found alternate ways
to finance the rebels.
Those sources said that private or-
ganizations in the United States and
Latin America, as well as some Latin
regimes, had supplied the rebels
with money to keep them going this
year and that Israel had provided
them with ammunition and weapons.
Aides to Baker and Sen. Ted Ste-
vens (R., Alaska), the assistant ma-
jority leader, said the White House
and CIA had indicated that they
should not work "very hard" for the
$21 million and should save their
efforts for the $28 million in 1985.
"The covert program is not dead,"
said a Baker aide. "It is just on hold
for the time being."
Stevens said that although the
White House had not withdrawn its
$21 million request, "there is no re-
newed request to my knowledge. I
doubt that there'd be another action
on it and I don't see any move to call
that up now."
The new approach simply delays
until the fall the expected confronta-
tion between Congress and the ad-
ministration over the covert aid.
Nevertheless, the Nicaragua issue
will still come up in Congress during
the current session, said Rep. Mi-
chael Barnes (D., Md.). Barnes said
the House would deal with it Thurs-
day when it votes on the 1985 Intelli-
gence Authorization Bill, which con-
tains funds - about $12 billion - for
the entire U.S. intelligence appara-
tus.
In May, the House Intelligence
Committee deleted $28 million from
that bill and continued a ban on the
use of CIA contingency funds to fi-
nance the Nicaraguan rebels.
Republicans are expected to offer
amendments Thursday to restore the
funds and eliminate the ban, intelli-
gence-panel sources said.
However, House Speaker Thomas
P. O'Neill (D., Mass.) said he would
instruct the Democrats to vote
against any compromise designed to
keep the covert program alive.
Barnes said that this time the Demo-
crats could not afford to compromise
in light of Mondale's promise, made
in his San Francisco acceptance
speech, to shut down the covert war
within 100 days after taking office.
"This means the covert aid is dead
for good this time," Barnes said.
In another development involving
covert aid, Rep. William Ratchford
(D., Conn.) said that a key House
committee had tacked $50 million in
such aid for Afghan rebels onto a
supplemental spending bill, United
Press International reported.
The House Appropriations Commit-
tee, meeting Thursday, approved a
$5.4 billion measure for additional
spending in fiscal 1984 that con-
tained the Afghan aid proposal,
Ratchford said.
Declassified in Part - Sanitized Copy Approved for Release 2012/01/24: CIA-RDP9O-00965ROO0201090016-6