Foreign Relations of the United States, 1977–1980, Volume II, Human Rights and Humanitarian Affairs

274. Memorandum From the Special Representative for Economic Summits (Owen) to President Carter¹

Washington, June 19, 1980

SUBJECT

• Rome-Venice Initiative and Statement on World Hunger

Here is a late entry agenda suggestion for your meeting with the Pope.

The proposal, presented in the briefing paper at Tab A, is that you take an initiative, in your meetings with the Pope, on the immediate food crisis in Africa; you could then use that “news peg” in remarks to the press/TV/radio that would draw public attention to the broader strategy for overcoming hunger that you will chart at the Economic Summit. Such a statement (Tab B)² would be appreciated by important US constituencies—religious, charitable and black groups, among others.

State, IDCA, USDA, and OMB concur in this suggestion.

Tab A

Briefing Paper³

Washington, undated

Vatican Visit Briefing Paper

Action to Relieve Hunger

Objectives

(1) To enhance international recognition of US leadership in agricultural and food aid to developing nations and domestic recognition by US interest groups of your Administration’s efforts in the war on hunger.

(2) To obtain Italian and Vatican support for immediate, effective measures to alleviate famine in northern Uganda.

(3) To organize broader international participation in relieving famine threatening many drought-afflicted African countries and in caring for refugees in East Africa.

(4) To take advantage of popular interest in these crises to gain attention for the Venice Summit’s preventive measures in this field and for the work of four international food agencies headquartered in Rome.

Background

Rome is the world headquarters for the war on hunger because it is the site of four international agencies concerned with food and agricultural development in LDCs. Pope John Paul II and other Roman Catholic leaders equate Christian responsibility and peace with development of the poor countries.

These considerations suggest that your visit to Rome, the Vatican and Venice is a propitious occasion for mobilizing greater international effort to relieve and avert famine. Such action is urgently indicated by starvation in northern Uganda, the spreading drought across the waist of Africa, the continuing plight of some two million refugees in East Africa, Southwest Asia and Southeast Asia, and the glacial scourge of malnutrition in all poor countries.

The immediate needs of the international emergency aid agencies in Uganda are for about $1 million in cash to rent trucks and about 3000 additional tons of food.

The World Food Council meeting on June 6 concluded that most of the countries across the waist of Africa face a second crop year of drought this summer and fall. The immediate action indicated is to ask the FAO for a comprehensive analysis of the food supply outlook in the drought-afflicted African countries, to call for increased contributions by potential donors to the World Food Program’s International Emergency Food Reserve, and to ask the WFP to coordinate an international African relief effort beginning this fall.

The spreading food crisis in Africa dramatizes the need for comprehensive preventive action to improve food security in vulnerable countries and to alleviate chronic malnutrition among hundreds of millions of people in poor countries. This is one of the major thrusts of the draft Venice Summit declaration,⁴ your Presidential Commission on World Hunger and the Brandt Commission.⁵

Talking Points with the Pope

—The tragic famine in northern Uganda and the threat of drought for a second year across the center of Africa are grave challenges to the international community’s conscience and vivid reminders of the need for more effective cooperation in preventing hunger.

—I understand that the World Food Program is running short of food in its Uganda relief operation, and all the agencies there urgently need cash to rent trucks at very high daily rates. I suggest, therefore, that the United States (and Italy) and Catholic Relief Services support the appeal of the World Food Program for emergency aid. We have asked the World Food Program to send a senior relief coordinator to Uganda.

—I intend to raise at Venice the need during the next 12 months for a coordinated international food aid program in drought-afflicted African nations, including relief of East African refugees.

—The African food crisis dramatizes the pervasive problem of hunger in poor countries, which we must seriously address at Venice. It is very important that we agree there on specific measures to strengthen agricultural development and food security aid to the low-income countries. I plan to highlight this long-term action in my remarks to the press before the Summit meeting commences as well as in the meeting.

Remarks to News Media

Draft remarks to the TV/radio/press contingent after your meeting with the Pope are attached.⁶

1. Source: Carter Library, National Security Affairs, Staff Material, Special Projects—Hazel Denton, Box 57, Food: 4–7/80. No classification marking. Attached to the memorandum is a handwritten note from Owen to Brzezinski: “Zbig—You said that an earlier version of this memo was too late. Rud [Rutherford Poats] has redrafted it, so that it applies only to the visit to the Pope. You may want to suggest to the President that he discuss the problem of world hunger, in general & starvation in Uganda, in particular, with the Pope—& then report on this discussion to the press & TV afterward. I think it’s a good idea. You have to judge whether it’s still ‘too late.’ This has been cleared by all the relevant agencies in Washington. I believe it would be helpful—but substantively & to the President. HO.” (Ibid.)
2. Attached but not printed.
3. No classification marking.
4. See Document 273 and footnote 10 thereto.
5. Reference is to the Independent Commission on International Development Issues, chaired by former West German Chancellor Willy Brandt. The Brandt Commission report, entitled North-South: A Programme for Survival, was released in 1980.
6. See footnote 2 above. The President and the Pope exchanged remarks in the Papal Study at the Vatican on June 21 at 11:34 a.m. Carter noted that “America has responded generously to the men, women, and children of Kampuchea, and we are acting with justice and with charity toward those people escaping from intolerable conditions in the Caribbean. And we work with the international relief agencies, such as the Catholic Relief Services, in providing food and shelter for those who are displaced by warfare in Indochina, the Horn of Africa, and Afghanistan.” (Weekly Compilation of Presidential Documents, June 30, 1980, p. 1165) The Embassy transmitted a copy of these remarks to the Department of State, White House, USICA, and the Embassies in Belgrade, Madrid, and Lisbon in telegram 16121 from Rome, June 21. (National Archives, RG 59, Central Foreign Policy File, D800301–0385)