Way Cleared for Sale of Jets to Honduras

A House Foreign Affairs subcommittee, on a tie vote, cleared the way today for President Reagan to sell a dozen advanced F-5 jet fighters and trainers to Honduras.

Members of the Western Hemisphere subcommittee voted 6 to 6 on a resolution to block the sale, meaning that Honduras will be able to receive the 10 F-5E fighters and two F-5F trainers it sought as part of a $75-million U.S. aid package.

The resolution barring the sale needed a majority vote to pass. A tie vote in Congress defeats the proposal being voted upon.

“It’s dead,” subcommittee staff member Pete Quilter said of the effort to block the sale. He said the matter will not be taken up by the full Foreign Affairs Committee.

Earlier this week, the full Senate Foreign Relations Committee voted 10 to 9 to block the jet sale, with Democrats supporting the resolution of disapproval and Republicans opposing it.

June 16 Deadline

Congress had until June 16 to act on Reagan’s proposal last month to give Honduras the jets.

The law requires both houses of Congress to pass the resolution of disapproval by that date. But even if the resolution blocking the sale had passed, it faced an almost certain Reagan veto and it was believed that opponents of the sale did not have the votes to override him.

The American-built planes bound for Honduras over the next few years are designed to replace 30-year-old French-built Super Mystere jets for which spare parts are no longer available.

Opponents of the sale said providing the planes to Honduras would not advance the cause of peace in the volatile Central American region. They also claimed that Honduras’ air force, even with its aged French jet fighters, remains far superior to any other air force in the region and the American jets are not needed.

But Rep. Robert K. Dornan (R-Garden Grove) said that if the United States denied Honduras the F-5s, Honduras would probably turn to Israel to buy Kfir fighters.