Say Uncle, Says Reagan

For months, if not years, he has fairly itched to come out and say it, and last week he almost did. Asked at a nationally televised news conference if he wanted to "remove the Sandinista government in Nicaragua," President Reagan replied, "Well, remove it in the sense of its present structure," which he described scornfully as "a Communist totalitarian state" and "not a government chosen by the people."

Seeing that Reagan was on the verge of a startling policy pronouncement, the reporters asked four more times whether he wanted to topple the Sandinistas. < But now the President bobbed and weaved, aware of the uproar that such a declaration would cause. The Administration would not seek to overthrow the Sandinistas, he explained, if they agreed to "say Uncle" and put in place a more pluralistic form of government that would include the contra rebels who have been fighting the Marxist-Leninist regime. "You can say we're trying to oust the Sandinistas by what we're saying," he noted opaquely, and returned to his oral bashing of the Nicaraguan regime. "I don't think the Sandinistas have a decent leg to stand on. What they have done is totalitarian; it is brutal, cruel."

Reagan's remarks were part of a concerted effort to pressure Congress into restoring aid to the contras. Congress has specifically barred the use of U.S. funds "for the purpose of overthrowing the government of Nicaragua." Last October the lawmakers voted $14 million for the reb-els, but stipulated that the money not be spent until Congress took a second vote this March.

That vote now looms large not only to Reagan but to the Nicaraguan combatants. A decision to release the funds would mean lifeblood to the contras. A vote not to would be an enormous morale boost to the Sandinistas. Each side knows that a successful major offensive in the next few weeks could help sway fence-sitters on Capitol Hill, and fighting has accordingly intensified. The fitful guerrilla war has spread to eight of the country's 16 departments, and the death toll is mounting. In the first two weeks of February alone, the Sandinistas claimed 189 contra casualties.

To win the war of public opinion at home, Reagan is resorting to a tactic used by all Presidents: taking his case straight to the country. He launched the p.r. drive in a radio address two weeks ago. Reagan called the contras "our brothers" and compared them to such "freedom fighters" as Lafayette, Steuben and Kosciuszko, the French, German and Polish officers who fought with the American colonies during the Revolutionary War. Secretary of State George Shultz joined the offensive at a congressional hearing last week. He declared that the U.S. had a "moral duty" to rescue the people of Nicaragua, who had fallen "behind the Iron Curtain." That statement seemed a bit hyperbolic. It is not established that the Sandinistas take their orders from the Kremlin the way the East bloc countries do. But it is clear that they are mightily beholden to the Soviets for a steady stream of aid and arms, and highly attentive to the Cubans.