STARVING FOR PEACE

Business has been slow at the "Veterans' Fast for Life in Central America," which is being held at the foot of the great staircase leading into the Capitol. The four hungry men hope to shame Congress into reversing its policy in Nicaragua; they say they will fast unto death.

The senators you might expect have been by: Democrats Patrick J. Leahy (Vt.), John F. Kerry (Mass.), Paul Simon (Ill.). Three Democratic House members, David E. Bonior (Tenn.), Thomas J. Downey (N.Y.), Samuel Gejdenson (Conn.), have come to sympathize. The Nicaraguan ambassador paid a call, bringing with him a letter from 50 Nicaraguan women who begged the fasters, "Don't die."

Otherwise, Congress has ignored the four veterans who are sitting on its doorstep dramatizing a subject neither party wishes to discuss. The Democrats are so embarrassed by their capitulation that they left the word Nicaragua out of their latest party pronouncement. Do not look for it either in Republican campaign speeches. Lately, President Reagan seems not to have heard of it.

Two fasters, Congressional Medal of Honor winner Charles Liteky, who was a Roman Catholic chaplain in Vietnam, and George Mizo, a New Jersey chef who won the Purple Heart in Vietnam, have been living on water since Sept. 1.

The others, Brian Willson, a strapping lawyer and Vietnam veteran-turned-peace-activist, and Duncan Murphy, a small, bearded, twinkling man who drove a World War II ambulance from North Africa to the liberation of Belsen, joined on Sept. 15.

Few people in Washington know about them. At the big Moffit-Letelier memorial dinner that brought together dissidents on Central America the hunger-strikers were not even mentioned.

The wire services have moved a few stories, and National Public Radio keeps up with them. But the networks and the big newspapers have steered clear. Washington knows about fasting as a political weapon from Mitch Snyder, champion of the homeless. He has prevailed over the president, twice, and the secretary of the Navy once. They did not want him dying on television.

Snyder visited the vets and cast a connoisseur's eye on their progress. He has always targeted one person. He wonders if aiming at Congress, or the 274 who voted $100 million for contra aid, might "disperse the guilt."

But they are sustained by a flood of letters, 1,000, from all over the country and the world, that came to their Washington office on Monday. They say they have had as many as 100 people at their daily 6 p.m. prayer vigil, where people speak about what they, too, should do to stop the war in Nicaragua.

Liteky, whose cheekbones are starting through his skin, notes sardonically that when he turned in his Medal of Honor last July -- he got it for rescuing 20 men in a Vietnam firefight -- he drew far more notice.

"The medal got much more attention; a symbol means more than human life. It's indicative of where we are in our values," says the former priest.

Mizo, who has lost 29 pounds and has a respiratory infection, said, "We are not here on a suicide mission. We don't want to die. We feel it is important that the Nicaraguan people know that at least four people are ready to put their lives on the line for peace."

Liteky chose the Capitol because "it belongs to us" and because he feels that Reagan, who is to blame, "will not change his mind about Central America."

"This is an extreme way of going about it, but we tried everything else."

It may be grimly appropriate. The administration will take no action on Nicaragua before the election -- no blood on the home screens, please -- but come next year, the speculation goes, the United States will throw a naval blockade around Nicaragua, one that could lead to an involuntary fast for the Nicaraguan people.

Liteky figures he can last for maybe 55 days. He has arranged for wheelchairs against the day the veterans are too weak to sit on the marble steps for four hours a day. He sighs.

Suddenly, a purposeful, pin-striped figure appears in the stream of tourists. It is Rep. Christopher H. Smith (R-N.J.), who says, "I'm on the other side of the issue. I just came because I read about George {Mizo} in the Trenton Times, I wanted to tell him to give this up. You don't make a point by dying."

There follows a spirited exchange, very like those that have raged for the past four years inside, about "communist aggression," atrocities, sovereignty, founding fathers, human rights. The vets are pleased, grateful to be engaging, at last, an enemy.

A number of passers-by gather to listen. One tall man asks: "What would the effect be on Reagan if they die?"

Smith's baby face is troubled. Finally, he says, "I think it would matter -- but it won't change the policy."

Articles appear as they were originally printed in The Washington Post and may not include subsequent corrections.