Tough Tug of War

To Ronald Reagan, Nicaragua is a "cancer" in the Western Hemisphere, a potential Soviet "beachhead" in North America, a haven for dope smugglers and terrorists. The country is in the grip of "an outlaw regime" of Marxist-Leninists who torture pastors and burn down synagogues. Left to fester, Reagan warned the nation last week, the Nicaragua of Sandinista Leader Daniel Ortega Saavedra will become a "second Cuba"--worse, a "second Libya, right on the doorstep of the United States."

The specter conjured up by the President is a frightening one, and though exaggerated, it contains elements of truth. But last week it failed to move a majority of the U.S. House of Representatives. In a vote that had been billed as a vital test of the Administration's interventionist foreign policy, the Democratic-controlled House rejected, at least for the moment, the President's request to give $100 million in aid to the Nicaraguan contras, who seek to overthrow the Sandinista regime. "The Administration deserved to have its nose bloodied on this," said Democratic Congressman Les Aspin of Wisconsin. "They handled this really badly." To a disappointed Reagan, the vote was "a dark day for freedom."

The outcome and the close vote (222 to 210) reflected the public's own confusion and wariness over the Administration's policy in Central America. For Reagan, accustomed to winning the big ones that he cares about and works for, it was a significant political setback. Nonetheless, the debate over Nicaragua is in fact just heating up. Under intense lobbying from the White House, the Republican-controlled Senate is expected to pass the contra aid package this week. Within three weeks the matter will be right back on the House floor.

Last week's rebuff was merely a "lost battle in a war we're going to win," declared White House Communications Director Patrick Buchanan. "We will never give up," vowed the President as he posed for photographers with three contra leaders who had flown to Washington to plead with legislators on Capitol Hill. He held up a button that read IF YOU LIKE CUBA, YOU'LL LOVE NICARAGUA.

The House vote was something of a personal triumph for that old sparring partner of Reagan's, House Speaker Tip O'Neill, who is retiring this year. Just before last week's vote, O'Neill promised that compromise proposals for contra aid would be brought up within a month, a tactic that was designed to win some undecided members into the nay column this go-around.

Democratic leaders concede that the White House will be able next time to salvage at least some aid for the contras. The critical questions: How much? What kind? With what strings attached? Reagan originally chose to demand all or nothing, but many Congressmen are searching for a middle ground. Unwilling to cut off the contras altogether, yet eager to explore diplomatic avenues as well, they want to approach the Sandinistas with a mixture of carrot and stick.