Bitter Butter

"Daddy," a young voice may pipe in 1965, "what did you do during the cold war?" If Daddy was a U.S. diplomat he may have to answer: "I tried to give away butter and eggs." If the small fry thinks this activity unheroic, he will be wrong. Scores of U.S. diplomats are working day and night, trying to allay the raging resentment of allies over the U.S. program for disposing of parts of its $7 billion accumulation of surplus commodities. Last week the storm reached a new intensity when Agriculture Secretary Ezra Benson announced a desperate "test." The U.S., under the plan, would export 10 million lbs. of surplus butter for competitive bidding on world markets.

In other butterfat countries (e.g., Denmark, The Netherlands, New Zealand and Australia) the test plan got a rancid reception. "The effect of the present proposal," said New Zealand Ambassador Sir Leslie Munro, "is to export a domestic difficulty at the risk of grave injury to . . . smaller and weaker countries."

Italy and South Africa were unhappy about subsidized export of U.S. oranges; Thailand and Burma objected to rice dumping. From. Spain came a lament about the distribution of free American milk to poor children. Spanish dairymen insisted that the U.S. largesse was having a ruinous effect on their business; milk purchases in Valencia are off 25%.

Where it couldn't cram its surpluses down foreign gullets, the U.S. seemed determined to force-feed its own. President Eisenhower, taking a tip from Lacto-phile Pierre Mendes-France, announced that the nation's armed forces and schoolchildren were going to get more milk. Benson urged the nation to eat more eggs. With U.S. hens laying 270 million more eggs in January than the record nestful of a year ago, Benson had reason to be alarmed. "Besides being friendly to your budget," cackled an urgent Agriculture Department brochure, "eggs are friendly to you . . ."

Moscow's Pravda last week reported that in New England's factory towns the people could not find "meat, butter or even margarine" in the stores. This was the usual Pravda flimflam, but bedeviled Ezra Benson could almost wish it true. No end is in sight for the flow of surplus food stimulated by the Government's farm price support program.

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