From `Death Squad Debbie' To A First Lady?

ONCE A SENIOR MEMBER of Sen. Jesse Helms' staff and a key player in Central America's bloody conflicts a decade ago, Deborah DeMoss-Fonseca now is helping her husband, Col. Rene Fonseca, in his bid to become president of Honduras. They are known as the region's odd couple.

LA LIMA, Honduras - As Deborah DeMoss in the 1980s, she was a forceful and controversial U.S. Senate aide, helping Sen. Jesse Helms, R-N.C., champion Nicaragua's contra rebels and advising right-wing politicians in El Salvador.

Now, as Deborah DeMoss-Fonseca, she is running for first lady of Honduras, helping her husband, retired Col. Rene Fonseca, as he follows the campaign trail over rutty, dusty roads along the northern coast of this Central American nation.

They are the region's odd couple.

As a senior member of the Helms staff, DeMoss-Fonseca was a player in Central America's bloody conflicts of a decade ago, although when she started as a Helms adviser in 1981, she was barely 21 years old. Fonseca, 48, was a senior military officer when his future wife began visiting Honduras. In 1991 he took over the military pension fund and in four years quintupled the fund's assets.

They married in 1993. When Fonseca retired last year, he decided to run for the presidential nomination of the National Party, even though he is a political neophyte. Primary elections are in December, and Fonseca and his wife are spending their own money on the effort so far.

One recent day started with a visit to a high school, then continued at a nursery school, a chat with leaders of a banana workers' union, an agricultural-research center and a home for senior citizens. The afternoon was spent meeting with directors of the Tela Railroad Co. and inaugurating a campaign headquarters here, followed by a dinner for supporters.

"Do I miss Washington? Of course," said DeMoss-Fonseca, sitting in the shady patio of a supporter's house in this town outside San Pedro Sula, Honduras' second city. "But I am fully happy here. . . . I think about Washington a lot; it was my life for 13 years. But most days this is a lot more fun. The Senate, that was great. But having a family is the greatest."

Together, they run Consultants International, founded when Fonseca left the army. Because their political and military contacts span the hemisphere, business is good.

DeMoss-Fonseca brags that she knew most of Central America's presidents before they hit the big time, when she toured the region's countries, cultivating friendships with lower-level politicians who have risen through the ranks.

How did a mover and shaker with an eye on starting her own career in U.S. electoral politics end up here? And this when her former boss, Helms, is wielding the greatest political clout of his Senate career?

The answer, the couple said, is love and God's hand. They met professionally and, after several years, realized they were in love. After a brief courtship, they married. Both are born-again Christians, and both said they felt this is God's plan for their lives.

At the time DeMoss-Fonseca was considering a job at the Pentagon and eyeing a possible run for Congress. But Fonseca made it clear that if they married, they would live in Honduras, not Washington. DeMoss-Fonseca says that was one of the things that attracted her: her husband's outspoken desire to stay and work in his own country.

Despite raising two children and campaigning, DeMoss-Fonseca, 35, remains close to Helms, who is the godfather of her older child, David. She is still consulted on bills, including the recently passed Helms-Burton bill that tightened economic sanctions against Cuba, one of her more cherished projects.

Unlike most Latin American politicians, Fonseca urges his wife to speak at campaign events. She often receives more press attention than he does. And there are the muffled jokes about his manhood, calling him Col. DeMoss and other barbs in a society where women hold few political posts.

But if Fonseca is bothered by this attitude, he does not show it. "It is unusual here, yes," Fonseca said. "I am the head of my house, but I like my wife to help. She has a lot of experience in campaigns, and she is my right arm. If politicians don't like it, tough."

DeMoss-Fonseca said she reminds herself every day that she has to watch what she says and how she says it. Because of her Washington ties, there are whispers that she is a CIA plant, sent to engineer Fonseca's election as president as part of some nefarious plan.

DeMoss-Fonseca, who worked her way up to the senior professional staff on the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, is remembered across Central America as a fiercely anti-Communist activist who, as Helms' Latin American adviser, helped set the Reagan-administration agenda for the region at a time when Central America was a burning policy issue - all while in her 20s.

Her detractors dubbed her "Death-Squad Debbie" for her ties to the contra rebels, the right wing in El Salvador and the Honduran military. "I believed in the contras," DeMoss-Fonseca said. "At that time we had communist insurgencies in all the countries. I believed, as did my boss, that the contras were important. We like to call them freedom fighters."