Foie Gras In The Mess?

Diplomacy may not have averted war with Iraq, but it brought a truce in a nasty food fight last week in Washington. The skirmishing began last month, when Congressman Jack Kingston, a Georgia Republican, gathered signatures from 59 of his fellow lawmakers for a letter asking Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld to cancel the $881 million contract of a company called Sodexho to cater 55 Marine mess halls. Reason: Sodexho is the U.S. subsidiary of a French company. "I think you will agree that it is inconsistent for us to continue to pour billions of dollars into the French economy in the face of the recent French failures to even consider support of the U.S. position on the disarming of Iraq," Kingston wrote. "It is particularly disturbing that this French company should benefit so much from a contract that serves our men and women in uniform."

Sodexho launched a counteroffensive, including an advertising campaign in which it pointed out that its 110,000 employees are as American as the apple pie they serve the Marines. It also enlisted some powerful allies such as Democratic Congressman Chris Van Hollen, in whose Maryland district Sodexho is headquartered, and New York Senator Charles Schumer, whose state is home to 8,600 Sodexho workers. Schumer personally lobbied Rumsfeld and has been in daily contact with the Pentagon on the issue. The efforts were repaid last Friday, when Schumer's office was notified that the Secretary of the Navy would soon be sending a letter of reassurance that the contract was safe. "It's a huge relief, with a capital R," says Sodexho spokeswoman Leslie Aun. --By Karen Tumulty