Time of the Locust

In the moist heat of East Africa the locusts bred and multiplied. Then, sudden as an explosion, vast swarms rose up to darken the sky. A single swarm may occupy 250 sq. mi. of space, contain perhaps 500 million locusts, and weigh 700 tons. At least 30 swarms headed northward.

They whirred into Egypt, Israel, Jordan, and a dozen other Middle East countries. Some traveled 2,000 miles to southern Iran. Everywhere they descended in huge clouds to resume their breeding. In Iran they strewed 1,500,000 acres with their eggs. Jordan, which has to feed a half million Palestinian refugees, reported 125,000 acres infested.

In Rome, the U.N. Food and Agriculture Organization warned of "a plague of locusts such as has not been seen in 100 years." Unless they can be quickly destroyed, a few billions of new locusts will sprout wings, eat up the grain and cotton of the Nile Vallev, the wheat and barley of Iran, the rice fields of Pakistan, and spread famine across one quarter of the world. While still wingless hoppers, the insects are easiest destroyed.

The dread of Moses' eighth plague, which devastated the land of Egypt, ran deeper than political squabbles. In the Negev Desert, Arab Legionnaires and Jewish soldiers, sworn enemies, killed locusts side by side; quarreling India and Pakistan swapped information and coordinated plans. And in Iran, both the U.S. and Russia pitched in, lending airplanes and sprayers (Russia worried about its own adjoining Caspian provinces).

One dawn last week, an American pilot flew eastward from the dead refinery town of Abadan along the shore of the Persian Gulf. As he skimmed five feet above fields crawling with dark brown insects, the 24 nozzles attached to the tanks slung under the plane's wings sprayed down death. The tanks were filled with Aldrin, a powerful new U.S. insecticide that kills locusts but is harmless to crops and cattle. Other Americans flew on similar missions in Jordan, Iraq and Pakistan, in a Point Four campaign that is costing the U..S. half a million dollars but has won a gratitude that money cannot usually buy. With the help of Aldrin, there is a good chance that crops and cattle will be saved.

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