‘Hatchet Victims’

I applaud your editorial. I feel that the American people have amply demonstrated in recent times, with the overwhelming response to the African famine and Hands Across America, a desire to contribute to long-term solutions to ending hunger.

How unfortunate that our political leaders do not acknowledge this as a priority in their development of a foreign aid budget. On the contrary, the amounts given to programs that have shown the greatest promise toward the goal of ending hunger have always been a tiny part of the budget, and now under Gramm-Rudman are cut even further.

It does not demonstrate our capacity as a nation to comprehend the fact that 35,000 people still die from hunger daily on our earth and the fact that we do now have the resources and technology to stop it if we only will.

CHERYL DIECHELMAN

San Diego