Not Just One Peace Plan For Nicaragua, but Two

At a meeting in the White House Oval Office, Ronald Reagan and George Shultz sealed a surprising accord with House Speaker Jim Wright and other congressional leaders. Three days later, in a grand reception room at the National Palace in Guatemala City, five Central American Presidents, including Nicaragua's Daniel Ortega Saavedra, proclaimed they had reached their own "historic compromise." And so, after six years of undeclared war between the U.S.-backed contras and the Sandinista government of Nicaragua, the battle last week suddenly became one between two rival peace plans for the region.

The only group left out of the flurry was one that could be most dramatically affected. The political and military leaders of the contras happened to be in Washington to start the process of seeking a new round of U.S. aid, when they were blindsided by the peace talks. But the issue of contra aid, which will run out at the end of September unless renewed, was very much on everyone's mind. Indeed, the White House had launched its effort as a blend of diplomacy and political gamesmanship designed to influence Congress if the peace process falters.

Although Secretary of State Shultz proclaimed that the Reagan-Wright plan was "not a ploy," there was reason for skepticism. The Administration has a history of announcing peace initiatives whenever contra funding is up for renewal. Late in 1984 a memo from John Poindexter, then Deputy National Security Adviser, to his boss, Robert McFarlane, set out a deceptive scheme: "Continue active negotiations but agree on no treaty and act to work out some way to support the contras either directly or indirectly. Withhold true objectives from staffs."

Nevertheless, Speaker Wright felt the time was ripe on all sides for a sincere diplomatic push: the Administration knew it could have trouble winning more contra aid; Congress was looking for ways to avoid a bruising clash; the rebels appeared to be making little headway on the battlefield; and the Sandinistas were experiencing severe economic problems and the prospect of waning Soviet support.

Wright, who has a mixed voting record on contra aid, was receptive when visited last month by the Administration's new lobbyist on the issue, Tom Loeffler, a former Texas Republican Congressman. The two Texas pols, longtime friends despite their partisan differences, produced a plan that in effect offered the Sandinistas a stark choice: join in serious negotiations now or face a possible new infusion of U.S. military aid to the contras.

The Pennsylvania Avenue shuttle diplomacy was kept secret from the six directors of the contra leadership visiting Washington. By the time they discovered the plan, at the eleventh hour, they had no opportunity to help shape it. Privately, some grumbled that they had been sold out.

The plan calls for the Sandinistas and the contras to agree on an immediate cease-fire. The U.S. would then suspend all military aid to the rebels ("humanitarian" help would continue), and Nicaragua would end its imports of military supplies from the Soviet Union. Nicaragua would be obliged to lift its state of emergency, restore basic civil rights, and establish an independent electoral commission that would plan for open elections. In addition, all foreign military personnel would be withdrawn from Central America and U.S. maneuvers in Honduras suspended.