GOP May Cancel Vote on Contras : Senate Leaders Urge Reagan to Seek Alternatives

With President Reagan’s request for $14 million for the Nicaraguan rebels apparently headed for defeat, Senate Republican leaders privately advised the White House on Wednesday to avoid an embarrassing foreign policy setback by canceling scheduled votes in Congress on the issue next week, according to congressional sources.

Although there was no immediate indication that the President is willing to forgo a vote on the aid package--which he has often portrayed as a matter that affects U.S. national security--two Democratic congressmen who met with Reagan at the White House said Wednesday that for the first time he had expressed a willingness to consider other alternatives.

Rep. Roy Dyson (D-Md.) said the President “is obviously willing to do some compromising, (and) I think that is evidence he doesn’t have the votes.”

Rep. J. Roy Rowland (D-Ga.) added, “He said there is room for negotiation.”

The President’s aid proposal suffered setbacks on other fronts as well. Colombian President Belisario Betancur released the text of a letter saying that the Administration has overstated his support for the aid package, and the Vatican challenged Reagan’s claim that his program has the support of Pope John Paul II.

With the House and the Senate scheduled to vote as early as next Tuesday on the aid package, Republican leaders now acknowledge that they do not have enough votes for passage. The aid request is believed to be behind by 30 votes in the House and is rated a tossup in the Senate.

As a result, Senate Majority Leader Bob Dole of Kansas and other Republican leaders--including Foreign Affairs Committee Chairman Richard G. Lugar of Indiana and Intelligence Committee Chairman David Durenberger of Minnesota--were said to be considering cancellation of the vote.

Dole Tries to Avoid Defeat

“Dole doesn’t want to have a vote that we get beat on,” said a Senate GOP source close to the deliberations. “I don’t think anybody wants to have a vote in which we lose.”

Instead of voting on Reagan’s plan, the source said, the GOP leaders are proposing that Congress simply express support for the President’s policy in Central America and permit some already appropriated relief funds to be diverted to Nicaraguan refugees.

“We simply want a vote that supports the direction of the President’s policy in Nicaragua and supports the contras ,” the source added.

A GOP compromise appeared necessary because a number of key Republican senators continue to oppose any covert military assistance to the Nicaraguan contras. Under Reagan’s plan, the money could be spent for military hardware after 60 days, if the Nicaraguan government refuses to participate in peace talks.

Budget Dole’s Priority

In addition, GOP leaders are known to be upset that the President chose to push for the contra aid at a time when they are trying to get a 1986 budget package passed in the Senate--a matter that Dole regards as his No. 1 priority.

The Republicans’ compromise proposal does not differ much from an alternative being discussed by House Democratic leaders.

House Speaker Thomas P. (Tip) O’Neill Jr. (D-Mass.) said Wednesday that his party is weighing a plan of its own. It would allow an unspecified sum of money to be used for humanitarian aid to Nicaraguan refugees, to be administered through the International Red Cross, and would authorize additional funding for the Contadora mediating group that is seeking a peace treaty in Central America.

The Contadora nations--Mexico, Panama, Venezuela and Colombia--have been working for two years to achieve a peace treaty in Central America. The group has proposed the formation of a peacekeeping force that could inspect military facilities in Central America.

Alternative Undecided

No final decision has been made on whether the Democrats will offer their alternative. Democrats who advocate the alternative contend that it would allow members of their party to express opposition to the Sandinista regime in Nicaragua without supporting the contras.

But O’Neill emphasized that he intends to defeat Reagan’s plan when it comes up for a vote. “I don’t think the President of the United States is going to be happy until American troops are in there, and I’m going to do everything I can to prevent that,” he said.

O’Neill also announced that he has decided to schedule the House vote next Tuesday, a week earlier than expected. White House spokesman Larry Speakes described the schedule change as a “legislative tactic that is aimed at defeating the President.”

But Republicans as well as Democrats seemed certain that Reagan would accept some sort of compromise. In private, “people in the White House have said they would accept humanitarian aid if that was all they could get,” a key Democratic congressman said.

‘We Can Count’

Assistant Secretary of State Langhorne A. Motley acknowledged that the Administration is being forced to consider alternatives. “We can count like everybody else,” he said.

But he added that the Administration has yet to see a concrete proposal for compromise.

“What they (the proponents of compromise) would like is a very nice, neat, clean proposal that they can all vote for,” Motley said. “Life in the big city isn’t that way.”

At the White House, Reagan sought to bolster his case by referring for the second straight day to a message that he had received from the Pope, whom he described as “supportive of all of our activities in Central America.”

When asked if the Pope specifically supported military aid for the contras, Reagan replied: “I’m not going into detail, but (the Pope supports) all our activities.”

However, Archbishop Pio Laghi, the apostolic nuncio to the United States, issued a statement saying that Vatican officials “exclude the possibility of his (the Pope’s) support or endorsement of any concrete plan dealing, in particular, with military aspects.”

Speakes later acknowledged that the Pope’s support did not extend to military aid.

Betancur’s letter to Reagan also undermined Administration claims that the aid package has the support of leaders in the region, saying that “military aid to the groups opposed to the Nicaraguan government worries me.”