Why Soviet Food Deal Helps U. S. Security : A stable ex-superpower would be a priceless commodity

The Agriculture Department has again sharply reduced its estimate of this year’s Soviet grain harvest, to an ominously low 175 million metric tons. Contrast that with last year’s near-record output of 235 million tons--which itself wasn’t enough to prevent localized food shortages--and you have some idea of how bad things have become.

Soviet agricultural output is regularly undercut by shortages of harvesting equipment and labor, poor transportation facilities, inadequate storage capacity and widespread theft. As a result, much of what is grown never reaches consumers. The increasing fear, as winter closes in, is that food shortages could ignite widespread unrest, threatening nascent democratic institutions. It is this concern that underlies the Bush Administration’s approval of a $1.4-billion food aid package for the Soviet Union.

Most of that aid--$1.25-billion worth--consists of government guarantees for commercial loans to buy American grain. In a unique arrangement, most of the 12 remaining Soviet republics have agreed to be responsible for repayment. The package also provides a $165-million grant to buy American food, the first free food sent to the Soviet Union since Herbert Hoover oversaw a $20-million famine relief effort 70 years ago that was credited with saving hundreds of thousands of Russian lives.

The new package follows earlier provision of $2.5 billion in food credits to the Soviet Union, nearly all of which has now been used up. A half-billion in credit guarantees are to be made immediately available, with the rest spread out over three months early next year. Under the latest agreement each of the republics that pledges to make good on the loan will receive specified amounts of food. This is not just a reward for underwriting debt repayment, but a deliberate move to avoid giving what remains of Soviet central authority control over the distribution process.

The Administration is characterizing the food-aid package as an instance of domestic rather than foreign aid, good for American farmers and thus good for the U.S. economy. So of course it will be. But this has not silenced complaints that the United States shouldn’t concern itself with feeding the hungry abroad when there are plenty of hungry at home.

That there are hungry and homeless in the United States remains a national embarrassment, demanding a practical and compassionate response of a scope no one has yet offered. But American foreign policy--which aims to support and protect national interests--cannot be put on hold pending the perfection of domestic society.

Trying to help feed the hungry in the Soviet Union is not just humane but, in a wholly legitimate way, nationally self-serving. It seeks to head off the kind of civil chaos that could--especially in a country that has known little but despotic rule--easily produce a revival of authoritarianism and a return to a stance of threatening hostility toward the outside world. There’s no certainty that U.S. food and technical aid will assure stability in the Soviet republics. But there’s a good chance that without it, civil unrest will grow and political repression will return. There’s no need to apologize for an action that serves the American national interest, as the food effort so clearly does.