The city of Bucharest was hit last week by a population explosion and a heat wave that turned the ordinarily tranquil, temperate Rumanian capital into a cauldron of international contention. Gathered in Bucharest were 1,100 delegates from 141 countries for the United Nations World Population Conference. It was the largest intergovernmental meeting in history, convoked to devise ways of remedying the soaring overpopulation that is straining declining world food reserves. Yet in spite of the gravity of the issue, the sweltering delegates in Bucharest's airless, ovenlike Palace of the Republic seemed motivated more by national pride and ideology than concern for the hunger that already blights many poor nations.
The heated arguments at Bucharest came as a surprise to the conference planners. Several preliminary U.N. meetings had been held to work out a detailed draft of a "plan of action." The plan called for a reduction of birth rates that would be proportionate to a country's population. This would slow down the present 2%-per-year growth rate that experts believe will double the present 3.9 billion world population by the year 2009. The plan also proposed that governments should provide the education, information and means for family planning, if the families so desire. The plan seemed tame enough.
U.S. Delegate Christian A. Herter Jr. warned that North American food reserves available for emergencies are now down to 27 days of world consumption. "Meanwhile," said Herter, "200,000 more people are born each day and have to be fed." Clearly, a catastrophic famine could some day occur, and Herter's warnings appeared to be merely stating the obvious.
Not so. The American proposals that overpopulated countries make a systematic effort to reduce the size of families to an average of two children, and implement birth control policies by the specific target date of 1985 were resoundingly rejected by the delegates.