Evening star., 1954-11-14

In spite Of enough poinsettia-
tape Government issue) to Strangle
Santa Claus, the United States Gov
ernment, CARE and score of other
relief organizations have teamed UP
again this year to bring a Christ
mas present of food to the needy
Of As countries.
BY Christmas, Harold E. Stassen's
Foreign Operations Administration
hopes it will have distributed almost
6 million packages containing
basic diet that can keep hungry
family going for a couple of weeks.
To accomplish this. FOA will have
spent $35 million for surplus foods,
packaging and transportation.
Two Problems
FOA's objective, obviously, is to
make friends for Uncle Sam. I'm
fortunately two aspects Of the pro-
gram seem to be producing exactly
the opposite effect.
First. the project is off to such
a slow start that it will be near
miracle if the food parcels get into
the hands of the needy people for
the holiday season.
Second, the choice of beneficiary
countries is bound to hurt the feel
ings of some of our friends around
the world.
Last years first attempt at dis
tributing surplus food packages was
a botch, too. That time FOA handled
all the details itself. But packages
did not arrive until early in Feb
ruary. Non beef-eating countries
received packages containing beef.
Red tape caused embarrassing local
level snafus.
This year FOA decided to get
smart. 1t announced a few months
ago that the food was available; let
accredited relief agencies step for
ward and claim it for distribution.
The program was turned over to-
CARE cooperative for American
Remittances to Everywhere) and to
the American Council Of Voluntary
Agencies for Foreign Service. The
latter organization represents about
20 of the Nations leading relief
groups. including the War Relief
Service (Catholic), Church World
Service, Inc. (Protestant) and the
American Jewish Joint Distribution
Committee. "a
When they kicked off the pro-
gram. the FOA people were en-
Unused enough to name it Opera
ton Poinsettia." Today, FOA's
publicity branch will tell you that
the only thing they know about
"Poinsettia" is that it's the name
of a Christmas flower.
Which Countries?
Principal complication that has de-
veloped is some heavy -handed inter-
cession by the State Department.
At the outset, it apparently was
decided to let the relief organiza-
tions choose the countries to which
they desired to send the food pack
ages. Then, after their selections
we're made, State stepped in with a
big black pencil.
Two countries crossed off the list
we're India and Pakistan, whose
needs, even layman may assume,
are greater than any one of Is
Central and South American coun-
tries who collectively are earmarked
to receive 100000 parcels Of food
costing Joe Taxpayer about So mil
lion by FOA calculations.
Why?
Robert w. Tyson, chief, special
commodities branch Of the Food and
Agriculture Division, FOA, finally
supplied the answer:
"The State Department said not
to include India and Pakistan be-
cause their needs are so great that
whatever they received under this
program would be q pittance. It
might backfire."
No answer was forthcoming on
why cattle-rich Argentina was re-
ceiving 1000 packages whose most
attractive single item is beef and
gravy. And are England, France,
Norway, Sweden and Finland, to
mention a few. going to be a little
miffed at being put on Uncle Sans
poor relation list?
A unit of the American Council
of Voluntary Agencies in New York
was asked this week why it has not
given greater publicity to the Christ
mas package plan. The answer was
to the point:
There has been so much red tape
that we haven't been able to de-
termine the number of packages we
will get. where they will 60 or the
time of distribution
The red tape finally began un-
raveling toward the end of the week.
General Services Administration,
which was given the huge task of
packaging the bulk of the food
stuffs to be shipped overseas. dis
closed that contracts have been
signed with the Quaker Export
Packaging Co. of Philadelphia, call
ing for completion Of the lob by