Central America Slipping and Sliding Around Peace

Their stated mission was to educate, not to interfere. But the State Department advisers who traveled to Central America last week had more in mind than a polite review of the peace accord that five Central American nations, including Nicaragua, signed in Guatemala City in early August. U.S. officials admitted that their goal was to slow progress on the peace plan, which, as far as the Reagan Administration is concerned, should never have been adopted in the first place. Said a U.S. diplomat: "It's like trying to put the brakes on a runaway train heading downhill."

The Administration also tried to regain the offensive back home. After weeks of thrashing about, one minute backing the peace process, the next claiming unwavering support for the contras, Washington tilted strongly toward the rebels last week. On vacation in California, President Ronald Reagan issued two pledges of continued support for the contras' war against the Sandinista regime in Nicaragua. He broadcast a morale-boosting message that was beamed to guerrillas in the field over a rebel radio station. Three days later Reagan met with contra leaders in Los Angeles. In Washington, officials criticized the Sandinistas, issuing statements of support for imprisoned Nicaraguans who had embarked on a hunger strike and finding fault with Managua's attempts to comply with provisions of the peace accord.

If the U.S. diplomatic maneuvers looked a bit flat-footed, Nicaraguan President Daniel Ortega Saavedra seemed to execute several deft pirouettes. He announced that three exiled priests could return to Nicaragua and hinted that the Roman Catholic Church's radio station might be reopened within 90 days. Some Central American officials speculated that Ortega was merely trying to embarrass the Reagan Administration; others argued that with Nicaragua's economy a shambles, Ortega was genuinely bent on procuring peace. Whatever the case, on the public relations front, conceded a U.S. official, "the Sandinistas have certainly done much better than we have."

The White House was attempting to recover from a series of miscalculations that could doom the contra effort for good. In early August, Reagan startled members of his Administration by unveiling a peace plan that was co-sponsored by Democratic House Speaker Jim Wright. According to State Department officials, Reagan had intended to present the Sandinistas with a proposal that they could only reject, then ask Congress for new contra funding before the current aid expires on Sept. 30. But the scheme went awry. Three days later, when the Presidents of El Salvador, Costa Rica, Honduras, Guatemala and Nicaragua met in Guatemala City to discuss a homegrown peace proposal, the Central American leaders allied with the U.S. felt compelled to sign their version. "What were we supposed to do?" asks a Honduran official. "Be the only ones not for peace?" One major difference between the two pacts: the Reagan-Wright plan calls upon the Sandinistas to negotiate directly with the contras, while the Guatemala accord does not.