Reagan Loses Patience Over Contras Aid : Pounds Fist on Desk in Frustration at Delays in Congress

WASHINGTON —  President Reagan pounded his desk with his fist in impatience at congressional obstacles to his Nicaraguan policy today, saying, “We have got to get where we can run a foreign policy without a committee of 525 telling us what we can do.”

Visiting Honduran President Roberto Suazo, meanwhile, supported Reagan’s quest for $14 million in aid for the contras fighting Nicaragua’s leftist regime, and GOP leaders expressed optimism about the chance of reversing their defeat in Congress on the issue.

White House spokesman Larry Speakes said Reagan doubled up his fist and brought it down on his desk for emphasis during a discussion with Republican congressional leaders of what the Administration regards as a dangerous advance of communism in Central America.

Warnings of Serious Trouble

He quoted Reagan as saying: “If we fail to respond now, we can expect much more serious trouble in the years ahead and the steady progress toward democracy in the whole region may be turned back.”

“He felt very strongly about the way Congress is horsing around on Nicaragua,” Senate Majority Leader Bob Dole of Kansas said after the meeting.

House Republican Leader Robert H. Michel of Illinois said it was the second time he could remember in such a leadership meeting “when the President really put his fist down on the table very audibly.”

Dole said he expects the Senate to vote this week on a bipartisan proposal reviving the contras aid. Michel said a proposal to blend the $14 million in emergency assistance with a $28 million request for the next fiscal year, for a total of $42 million, is being considered in the House.

House Called the Key

Sen. John Heinz (R-Pa.) said that the Democrat-controlled House is key on the Nicaraguan aid.

“Clearly the Democrats . . . got a rude awakening when (Nicaraguan President) Daniel Ortega went to Moscow, and there appears to be a very good chance that there will be a bipartisan plan developed in the House that will put American foreign policy in Central America back on the track,” Heinz said.

Opening a meeting with Reagan in the Oval Office later in the day, Suazo said: “What the American Congress and the American people should remember is that 24 hours after the (aid) request by President Ronald Reagan was rejected by the Congress, that President Daniel Ortega was in Moscow saying hello to Chairman (Mikhail S.) Gorbachev of the Soviet Communist Party.

“I think that everybody recognizes that this vote in the Congress of the United States . . . was a victory for President Daniel Ortega and for the Communist Party.”

‘Most Obstacles’ to Peace

Suazo said the regime in Nicaragua had “placed the most obstacles” of any Central American government in the path of a peaceful settlement of the region’s conflicts.

Reagan said he was encouraged by Suazo’s remarks.

Suazo nevertheless expressed heightened concern about Honduras’ role as a staging ground for the U.S.-backed contras.