For the Record

Defense Secretary Caspar Weinberger still has the Commander-in-Chief on his side, but many Republicans are breaking ranks in fight over defense budget. Senate Majority Leader Robert Dole has warned that Administration will jeopardize cuts in domestic spending if it doesn’t agree to freeze military budget at current levels. Assistant Senate Majority Leader Alan Simpson thinks there are enough votes in Senate for freeze. Among other GOP leaders, Senators Barry Goldwater, chairman of Armed Services Committee, and Ted Stevens, chairman of Defense Appropriations Subcommittee, are still behind Weinberger. In the House, defense budget is in for more trouble, not only from Democrats. “I’ve never seen a defense budget that couldn’t be cut,’’ said House Minority Leader Robert Michel. . . . With Senate confirmation vote of 95 to 0, White House Chief of Staff James Baker is set for his move to Treasury. In process of his own confirmation hearing. Richard Darman, a Baker assistant who will move to Treasury with him. told Senate Finance Committee that Reagan Administration plans to change Treasury’s tax plan so attract broad-based support on Capitol Hill. . . Representative Jack Kemp says Administration is seeking compromise with congressional supporters of tax simplification. According to Kemp, Treasury-designate Baker will sit down with Senator Bill Bradley and Representative Richard Gephardt, sponsors of Democrats’ tax- simplification proposal, and Kemp and Senator Robert Kasten, sponsors of GOP simplification proposal. . In contrast to Baker and Darman. White House Counselor Edwin Meese is facing strong opposition in his bid to become Attorney General, thanks to leak of staff report from Office of Government and Ethics. Report says Meese had violated ethical standards, since people who had loaned him money were able to obtain federal jobs. But Meese has staunch defenders. When Senate Judiciary Committee member Ted Kennedy charged that Meese had helped preside over four years of “retreat” in civil rights. Judiciary Chairman Strom Thurmond replied: “The questions that Senator Kennedy raised were raised in the election and I think the people settled that.” . . . UN Ambassador Jeane Kirkpatrick is going back to Georgetown University. Her statement had high praise for Mr. Reagan—and no praise for Secretary of State George Shultz.

Administration is fighting hard for $14 million in military aid to Nicaraguan freedom-fighters. Langhorne A. Motley, Assistant Secretary of State for Inter-American Affairs, bluntly told congressional subcommittee that Administration critics were “wrong about El Salvador, wrong about Grenada, and they are wrong about Nicaragua— and for the same reasons.” Attorney William D. Rogers, who held Motley’s pest in Carter Administration, told subcommittee that military aid should be replaced by economic sanctions against Sandinistas. … In interview with New York City Tribune, Robert Odio and Adolfo Chamorro, members of Edén Pastora’s rebel group, warned of consequences of aid cutoff. “U.S. hasn’t given [the Contras] a penny for the last nine months,” said Chamorro, while Soviets have begun supplying Sandinistas with helicopter gunships. In ten years’ time, they predicted, the U.S. will be fighting Communists on its own southern border. . . . Columnist Patrick Buchanan says: “If the Contras are abandoned, Reagan will be left with this stark choice: either adjust to the permanent existence of a Russian military beachhead and revolutionary base camp on the North American continent—or send in the Marines.” . . . Sandinistas, however, are getting help from United States. Steve Nelson, commander of Abraham Lincoln Brigade, has launched national ad campaign to send ambulance to Nicaragua. Campaign has so far raised twenty thousand dollars. “We were labeled ‘premature anti-fascists’ when we sent an ambulance to Spain in 1937,” Nelson said. “Can today’s friends of democracy and anti-fascism do less today?” . . . After meeting with Prime Minister Pham Van Dong and other Vietnamese officials, Representative Stephen Solarz is sure Vietnamese will not agree to U.S. request that they allow imprisoned Vietnamese who worked with U.S. during war to come to America. Solarz reported that new crackdown was under way in Vietnam. There are already ten thousand Vietnamese in “re-education” camps. . . . World federations of free Estonians, Latvians, and Lithuanians are holding conference to “prevent the Baltic question from failing into oblivion.” An international jury of five to seven experts will hear witnesses testify to Soviet crimes in the region. To provide a balanced platform, said Julijs Kadelis, head of World Federation of Free Latvians. the federations have invited witnesses who have participated in such hearings as the Russell Tribunal. Conference will take place in Copenhagen from July 23 to July 25.

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Defense Secretary Caspar Weinberger still has the Commander-in-Chief on his side, but many Republicans are breaking ranks in fight over defense budget. Senate Majority Leader Robert Dole has warned that Administration will jeopardize cuts in domestic spending if it doesn’t agree to freeze military budget at current levels. Assistant Senate Majority Leader Alan Simpson thinks there are enough votes in Senate for freeze. Among other GOP leaders, Senators Barry Goldwater, chairman of Armed Services Committee, and Ted Stevens, chairman of Defense Appropriations Subcommittee, are still behind Weinberger. In the House, defense budget is in for more trouble, not only from Democrats. “I’ve never seen a defense budget that couldn’t be cut,’’ said House Minority Leader Robert Michel. . . . With Senate confirmation vote of 95 to 0, White House Chief of Staff James Baker is set for his move to Treasury. In process of his own confirmation hearing. Richard Darman, a Baker assistant who will move to Treasury with him. told Senate Finance Committee that Reagan Administration plans to change Treasury’s tax plan so attract broad-based support on Capitol Hill. . . Representative Jack Kemp says Administration is seeking compromise with congressional supporters of tax simplification. According to Kemp, Treasury-designate Baker will sit down with Senator Bill Bradley and Representative Richard Gephardt, sponsors of Democrats’ tax- simplification proposal, and Kemp and Senator Robert Kasten, sponsors of GOP simplification proposal. . In contrast to Baker and Darman. White House Counselor Edwin Meese is facing strong opposition in his bid to become Attorney General, thanks to leak of staff report from Office of Government and Ethics. Report says Meese had violated ethical standards, since people who had loaned him money were able to obtain federal jobs. But Meese has staunch defenders. When Senate Judiciary Committee member Ted Kennedy charged that Meese had helped preside over four years of “retreat” in civil rights. Judiciary Chairman Strom Thurmond replied: “The questions that Senator Kennedy raised were raised in the election and I think the people settled that.” . . . UN Ambassador Jeane Kirkpatrick is going back to Georgetown University. Her statement had high praise for Mr. Reagan—and no praise for Secretary of State George Shultz.

Administration is fighting hard for $14 million in military aid to Nicaraguan freedom-fighters. Langhorne A. Motley, Assistant Secretary of State for Inter-American Affairs, bluntly told congressional subcommittee that Administration critics were “wrong about El Salvador, wrong about Grenada, and they are wrong about Nicaragua— and for the same reasons.” Attorney William D. Rogers, who held Motley’s pest in Carter Administration, told subcommittee that military aid should be replaced by economic sanctions against Sandinistas. … In interview with New York City Tribune, Robert Odio and Adolfo Chamorro, members of Edén Pastora’s rebel group, warned of consequences of aid cutoff. “U.S. hasn’t given [the Contras] a penny for the last nine months,” said Chamorro, while Soviets have begun supplying Sandinistas with helicopter gunships. In ten years’ time, they predicted, the U.S. will be fighting Communists on its own southern border. . . . Columnist Patrick Buchanan says: “If the Contras are abandoned, Reagan will be left with this stark choice: either adjust to the permanent existence of a Russian military beachhead and revolutionary base camp on the North American continent—or send in the Marines.” . . . Sandinistas, however, are getting help from United States. Steve Nelson, commander of Abraham Lincoln Brigade, has launched national ad campaign to send ambulance to Nicaragua. Campaign has so far raised twenty thousand dollars. “We were labeled ‘premature anti-fascists’ when we sent an ambulance to Spain in 1937,” Nelson said. “Can today’s friends of democracy and anti-fascism do less today?” . . . After meeting with Prime Minister Pham Van Dong and other Vietnamese officials, Representative Stephen Solarz is sure Vietnamese will not agree to U.S. request that they allow imprisoned Vietnamese who worked with U.S. during war to come to America. Solarz reported that new crackdown was under way in Vietnam. There are already ten thousand Vietnamese in “re-education” camps. . . . World federations of free Estonians, Latvians, and Lithuanians are holding conference to “prevent the Baltic question from failing into oblivion.” An international jury of five to seven experts will hear witnesses testify to Soviet crimes in the region. To provide a balanced platform, said Julijs Kadelis, head of World Federation of Free Latvians. the federations have invited witnesses who have participated in such hearings as the Russell Tribunal. Conference will take place in Copenhagen from July 23 to July 25.