Turmoil in Ethiopia

Paul B. Henze’s paroxysm of national pride over the democratic wonders this country has now wrought in Ethiopia (“Off the Sidelines and Discreetly Into the Fray,” Commentary, May 29) is somewhat premature and not completely deserved. Our bungling in the Horn of Africa has been, perhaps, even greater and more disastrous than our meddling on the other side of the Red Sea.

I would particularly like to see the substantiation of Henze’s grandiose assertion that “the United States has spent enormous sums--perhaps $3 billion during the past decade--on famine relief in the Horn of Africa.” Considering the accelerating starvation, into whose stomachs--or pockets--did those billions go? While numbers, especially body counts, often are obscured by the shifting sands of Middle East agendas, it is probable that more than 1.5 million Ethiopians died in the famine of 1982-1985. The Reagan Administration declined to provide that nation with food aid until 1985. $3 billion? What the RAND Corp. modestly calls its “think tank” is actually a justification tank for our expensive blundering abroad. Whatever we spent--and rest assured it wasn’t that much--little or no effort was made by our government to see that it actually translated into food delivered to the starving.

DICK GUTTMAN, Malibu