President Trims Saudi Arms Deal : Stinger Missiles Dropped in Effort to Preserve Sale

WASHINGTON —  With his proposed $354-million arms sale to Saudi Arabia facing certain defeat in Congress, President Reagan sought to salvage part of the package Tuesday by pledging to drop the controversial Stinger ground-to-air missiles from it.

Secretary of State George P. Shultz disclosed the President’s plan during a closed meeting with Senate Republicans. He said that the decision was made in a meeting earlier in the day between Reagan and Prince Bandar ibn Sultan, the Saudi ambassador to the United States.

Sen. Alan Cranston (D-Calif.), who has led the opposition to the sale, called the offer an admission of defeat by Reagan and Saudi Arabia.

“The Administration and the Saudis have thrown in the towel,” he said.

Use by Terrorists Feared

But Cranston also acknowledged that the move could succeed in softening congressional opposition to the plan and rescue Reagan from an embarrassing foreign policy defeat. The House and Senate already have voted against the arms sale, which many opponents said might result in the deadly, portable Stingers falling into the hands of terrorists.

Sen. Richard G. Lugar (R-Ind.), chairman of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, said the Saudis agreed to the compromise because they want “an affirmative vote” in Congress even more than they want the missiles.

“It’s worth a great deal--not only the symbolism, but the affirmation (of the United States) to come to their assistance,” he said.

The President has the authority to approve arms sales to foreign countries unless both chambers of Congress vote against it. He then can veto their resolution of disapproval, but Congress can override the veto with a two-thirds majority vote in both chambers.

Veto Expected Today

Reagan is expected to veto the resolution of disapproval today. If one chamber of Congress fails to override the veto, the sale can take place.

However, in both the House and Senate, the original votes against the sale exceeded the two-thirds necessary to override. The Senate voted 73 to 22 against it; the House vote was 356 to 62. The combined action marked the first time that Congress has ever disapproved a weapons sale, and many members said it reflected belief that the Saudis had failed to help U.S. efforts to bring peace to the Middle East.

So far, the Administration’s efforts to revive the sale have focused exclusively on the Republican-run Senate. The margin of defeat in the Democratic-controlled House was considered too large to reverse.

With Stingers still included in the package, sources said, the Administration was able to persuade only two or three GOP senators to drop their opposition to the sale. Even without Stingers, they said, it was not certain that the President could win enough support in the Senate to uphold his position.

The arms sale package, as initially proposed, included 800 shoulder-launched Stinger missiles costing $89 million. Without the Stingers, the remaining $265-million package would include only Sidewinder air-to-air missiles and Harpoon ship-to-ship missiles.

Earlier this year, Reagan had hoped to sell the Saudis more than $1 billion of military equipment, including sophisticated F-15 jet fighters. But that request was scaled down drastically in an unsuccessful effort to answer congressional opposition.

“The package has been greatly diminished,” Cranston said. “We’ve achieved a lot, but we haven’t achieved the main goal: stopping the sale entirely.”

Cranston said that his opposition has not been diminished by the elimination of Stingers. “As a matter of principle, I do not believe we should be selling our advanced weapons to a nation that thwarts American interests in the Middle East, that bankrolls nations and organizations that support terrorists and that backs Kadafi against the United States,” he said, referring to Libyan leader Moammar Kadafi.

Delay of Several Years

After his meeting with Reagan, Prince Bandar said he agreed to eliminating the Stingers from the package because “we have a more immediate requirement” for the Sidewinders and Harpoons. None of the weapons is scheduled to be delivered for several years.

Also, Bandar hinted that if the Saudis could not get Stingers, they would buy comparable weapons elsewhere. Earlier this year, the Saudis bought Tornado fighters from the British to compensate for the U.S. refusal to sell them equally sophisticated warplanes.

Although the pro-Israel lobby has been officially neutral on the sale, many members of Congress voted against it on the assumption that their vote would be viewed favorably by Jewish voters and campaign contributors.

Administration lobbyists have put considerable pressure on Sen. Rudy Boschwitz (R-Minn.) to drop his opposition to the sale, figuring that a switch by Boschwitz would “send a signal”--as one aide put it--that the White House had the approval of Jewish leaders. But Boschwitz, who is Jewish and whose family fled Nazi Germany when he was 2 years old, said he will continue to oppose it.

Reagan also met with a group of 12 Jewish supporters at the White House on Tuesday in an effort to make his case that the sale would help, not hinder, the security of Israel by cementing a good relationship between the United States and a moderate Arab nation. But the President apparently failed to convince most of them.

“Most of the group is opposed to the sale,” said Rabbi Milton Balkany of Brooklyn, N.Y., as he left the White House. “Why should we support a country that supports terrorism?”

The group included several Republican donors but no leaders of major Jewish organizations. Thirty-five Jewish backers had been invited to the White House, but the others declined to attend.