Office of the Historian

233. Memorandum From the President’s Special Assistant for Health Issues (Bourne) and the President’s Assistant for Congressional Liaison (Moore) to President Carter1

Washington, October 13, 1977

SUBJECT

  • Congressional Resolution on World Hunger

As mentioned in Peter Bourne’s memo of September 28, 1977,2 both the Senate and the House have had resolutions introduced calling on you to establish a commission on World Hunger and Malnutrition. In each house the resolution was co-sponsored by a majority of the members.

All of the key sponsors are eager to accommodate your wishes and your own initiatives and have not only consulted with us, but have [Page 741] modified the resolutions considerably to make them potentially vehicles to build public support for your own program rather than to initiate new studies. They are, however, unwilling to withdraw the resolutions and are pressing us for you to take a position on them. There is also a strong desire for a small delegation to meet with you to discuss this issue.

We are aware of your antipathy to establishing further Presidential Commissions and believe that if you would meet with a small delegation to convey your special interest in world hunger and your reasons for not wanting additional commissions they would be willing to stall their resolutions. With your approval we will arrange such a meeting.3

The Senate Resolution has been ordered reported out of the Committee on Agriculture. The House version has been referred to both the Committee on International Relations and the Committee on Agriculture with hearings scheduled for next week.4

  1. Source: Carter Library, White House Central Files, Subject Files, Box HE–6, Executive, HE–3, 9/30/77–12/31/77. No classification marking. Drafted by Bourne, who initialed for Moore. A copy was sent to Eizenstat. A stamped notation on the top of the memorandum indicates that the President saw it; Carter wrote “ok, C” in the top right-hand corner of the memorandum.↩
  2. Not found. Bourne did, however, reference congressional action on world hunger in his September 14 memorandum to the President (See Document 227).↩
  3. The President circled this paragraph.↩
  4. See footnote 3, Document 227.↩