CONGRESS AND THE CONTRAS: THE BATTLE FOR CAPITOL HILL

• Document Type: CREST
• Collection: General CIA Records
• Document Number (FOIA) /ESDN (CREST): CIA-RDP90-00965R000403800002-8
• Release Decision: RIPPUB
• Original Classification: K
• Document Page Count: 2
• Document Creation Date: December 22, 2016
• Document Release Date: January 12, 2012
• Sequence Number: 2
• Publication Date: March 9, 1986
• Content Type: OPEN SOURCE

STAT
1 Declassified in Part - Sanitized Copy Approved for Release 2012/01/12 : CIA-RDP90-00965R000403800002-8
ObPAE11 ElP"Y
Congress and the Contras:
The Battle for Capitol Hill
By WE M M. Uwaa dd
WASHINGTON
President Reagan is encountering
intense resistance in Congress to
his request for $100 million to aid
the counterrevolutionary exiles, or con-
tras, fighting to overthrow the Sandinista
government in Nicaragua. The mood on
Capitol Hill has changed since last year
when Congress gave the President a
major victory by lifting the 1884 ban on
aid to the contras and approving $27
million for non-lethal (sometimes re-
ferred to as "humanitarian") assistance.
A major factor is Reagan's failure to
keep the promises he made last year when
he was trying to entice a reluctant
Congress to approve the $27-million aid
package. In a letter to Rep. Dave McCurdy
(D-Okla.), the President pledged to re-
sume bilateral negotiations with the San-
dinistas, clean up the contras' horrific
human-rights record and keep Congress
fully informed on how the aid money was
being spent. Congress gave Reagan his
aid, but the President has yet to keep his
promises.
The CIA looked into allegations of
contra human rights abuses by askinir the
controls the reports were true. They said
no. When the General Accoun Office
an invest' ative arm Congress, tried to
find out how the
co or wo the -
t ation continues to reject requests
.
,that it resume ,
insisu' on a impossi e e
the teas first agree to nego ft_U0_5__
with h ontraa.
The Administration's obstinate refusal
to do what it promised has alienated many
of the moderate Democrats who provided
Reagan with his margin of victory last
year. McCurdy, who serves as a.spokes-
man for some of these members,. has
already announced that he will vote
against the request for $100 million in
additional aid.
Skepticism about the aim of Reagan's
policy is also on the rise. Last year, the
President argued that aid for the contras
was needed as an adjunct to diplomacy-
to bring the Sandinistas to the bargaining
table. Most members are now convinced
that the Reagan Administration has no
interest in a diplomatic settlement with
the Sandinistas, but is implacably dedicat-
ed to overthrowing them.
Administration officials routinely argue
that there are only two alternatives to
aiding the contras: the direct use of U.S.
troops or the surrender of Central Ameri-
ca to the Warsaw Pact, as White House
Communications Director Patrick J. Bu-
chanan put it. Glaringly, absent is the
option Reagan claimed to be seeking last
year-a negotiated political settle-
ment. White Hoqse spokesman
Larry Speakes finally punctured
that polite fiction two weeks ago
when he was asked if the purpose
of U.S. policy was to overthrow the
Sandinistas. "Yes, to be absolutely
frank," he replied.
The candor was refreshing, but it
didn't help the Administration's
cause on Capitol Hill. If Reagan is
intent upon cutting out the Sandin-
ista "cancer," as Secretary of State
George P. Shultz calls it, then the
contras are clearly inadequate to
the task. Despite the renewal of aid
from the United States, the contras'
have been incapable of establishing
themselves inside Nicaragua be-
cause they have no political appeal,
not with a command structure
including former members of So-
moza's National Guard The last
two commanders of the U.S.
Southern Command agreed that
the contras could not overthrow
the Sandinistas, even with signifi-
cant U.S. assistance.
In Congress, the suspicion is
growing that aid to the contras is
not intended to avoid direct U.S.
involvement, as the Administration
claims, but is setting the stage for
it. If the contras cannot eliminate
the Sandinistas, then U.S. troops
can. If the Administration is un-
willing to negotiate, then the logic
of its policy is inexorable. Eventu-
ally it will have to mount an
invasion or accept defeat. This is
why House Speaker Thomas P.
O'Neill Jr. (D-Masi) warns that
Reagan's policy is leading to anoth -
er Vietnam in Central America.
The conviction that Reagan is
intent on deposing the Sandinistas
is also widespread in Latin Ameri-
ca. Last month the foreign minis-
ters of eight Latin American na-
tions came to Washington urging
the Administration to stop aiding
the contras and start talking with
the Sandinistas. The ministers rep-
resented all the major democracies
and all our major allies in Latin
America. They were turned down
flat. The ease with which the
Reagan Administration is sacrific-
ing broad hemispheric interests to
its obsessive policy of hostility
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 Declassified in Part - Sanitized Copy Approved for Release 2012/01/12 : CIA-RDP90-00965R000403800002-8 .1
toward Nicaragua has become a
source of mounting distress on
Capitol Hill.
The efforts of the Latin Ameri-
can countries are widely heralded
in Congress as the best hope for
negotiating a regional peace ac-
cord. As evidence of the Adminis-
tration's antagonism toward the
Contadora peace effort grows and
the Contadora nations themselves
become more vocal in their opposi-
tion to U.S. policy, members are
finding it harder to maintain the
illusion that they can support both
Contadora and the contras.
Even the Administration's
friends in Central America have
become uncertain allies. Oscar Ari-
as, who takes office in May as
president of Costa Rica, has reaf-
firmed his country's neutrality to-
ward Nicaragua, called on Wash-
ington to halt aid for the contras
and opened talks with the Sandin-
istas to establish joint supervision
of the border. If the talks succeed,
it will mean an end to Washing-
ton's hopes of reviving a "southern
front" in the contra war.
Jose Azcona, the newly elected
president of Honduras, has sur-
prised observers by refusing to
allow the United States to resume
aid shipments to the contras
through Honduras. And Christian
Democrat Marco Vinicio Cerezo,
newly elected president of Guate-
mala, has been a major catalyst for
resuming regional peace talks. On-
ly Jose Napoleon Duarte of El
Salvador, mortgaged to Washing-
ton by $500 million in yearly aid,
still gives unflinching support to
Reagan. It is no accident that El
Salvador is Philip Habib's first stop
on his new assignment as presiden-
tial envoy to advance peace in
Central America-a calculated at-
tempt to show that the Administra-
tion will negotiate.
The key to Latin reaction is
nationalism. The human and eco-
nomic toll of the region's conflicts
is staggering. Central Americans
are coming to resent Washington's
willingness, in pursuit of its own
interests, to fuel the wars that are
consuming their countries.
Reagan has an uphill battle to
win approval of his $100-million aid
proposal. Neither the President nor
his Democratic opponents in the
House of Representatives are talk -
ing about compromise. The stage is
set for confrontation-a simple yes
or no vote on the President's
proposal.
The outcome of this vote will not
settle the issue of Washington's
relations with Nicaragua, of course,
but it will be a major turning point.'
Reagan will no doubt interpret a
victory as an endorsement of his
drive to depose the Sandinistas.
The war against Nicaragua will
escalate, the chances for a negoti-
ated settlement will diminish and
the United States will !rove one
step deeper into the Central Amer-
ican quagmire.
If Congress hands the President
a defeat, it will he a clear vote of no
confidence in Reagan's policy and a
signal that both the Congress and
the American people want a nego-
tiated agreement with the Sandin-
istas, not a war against them. ^
William M. LeoGrande i aassociate pro-
fessor of political 8cience at American
University and co-editor of "Confronting
Revolution. Security Through Diplomacy
in Central America," due soon from Pan-
theon.
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