Odds against the Contras

‘There’s an 85 per cent chance that Congress won’t approve the President’s $105-million 1988 budget request for the Contras,” observes a Central America analyst and Contra backer here. “Without that money, they’ll last a year, 18 months at the most.” Last fall, when Congress belatedly approved a $100-million Contra-aid package, things seemed to be looking up. But the double whammy of November 4, 1986—viz., the Democratic recapture of the Senate, plus the first disclosures on the Iran affair—stopped the Contra gains cold. As the Iran affair unwound—with Ed Meese’s startling admission that money from the arms sales had been earmarked for the Nicaraguan resistance —Contra supporters began to worry in earnest.

The fate of the Contra movement will be decided by three key players: the Administration, the Hill, and the Contra leaders. Once the driving force in securing aid for the freedom-fighters, the White House is now rudderless and ineffectual. Four months after the Iran story broke, the Administration has yet to address the affair in a way that can put it to rest. Although the President vowed to continue aid to the Contras in his State of the Union message (“I will fight any effort to shut off their lifeblood and consign them to death, defeat, or a life without freedom”), bickering and chaos in the Administration have all but derailed the President’s noble initiative.

‘There’s an 85 per cent chance that Congress won’t approve the President’s $105-million 1988 budget request for the Contras,” observes a Central America analyst and Contra backer here. “Without that money, they’ll last a year, 18 months at the most.” Last fall, when Congress belatedly approved a $100-million Contra-aid package, things seemed to be looking up. But the double whammy of November 4, 1986—viz., the Democratic recapture of the Senate, plus the first disclosures on the Iran affair—stopped the Contra gains cold. As the Iran affair unwound—with Ed Meese’s startling admission that money from the arms sales had been earmarked for the Nicaraguan resistance —Contra supporters began to worry in earnest.

The fate of the Contra movement will be decided by three key players: the Administration, the Hill, and the Contra leaders. Once the driving force in securing aid for the freedom-fighters, the White House is now rudderless and ineffectual. Four months after the Iran story broke, the Administration has yet to address the affair in a way that can put it to rest. Although the President vowed to continue aid to the Contras in his State of the Union message (“I will fight any effort to shut off their lifeblood and consign them to death, defeat, or a life without freedom”), bickering and chaos in the Administration have all but derailed the President’s noble initiative.