In Ottawa's Chateau Laurier, the only living ex-President of the U.S. sat down to a butterless, breadless, sugarless, cream-less, potatoless, meatless dinner. (He ate cold salmon, vegetables, fruit.) Then he rose before a microphone to talk about food. At President Truman's request, Herbert Hoover had travelled 50,000 miles through 38 countries. Few men except the starving themselves knew so much about food—and famine.
When the world food shortage became acutely apparent four months ago, said he, there was an eleven-million-ton gap between the amount of food available for hungry nations and the amount needed to keep them alive. That gap, said...