International: For the Two-Thirds

The first of the peace conferences of World War II bore fruit last week. President Roosevelt at last asked Congress to approve U.S. membership in the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations, an international planning body projected at Hot Springs (Va.) in 1943.

FAO's chief reason for existence is the drab fact that at least two-thirds of the world's two billion people have never had enough of the right kind of food to eat. In no sense a relief organization, FAO will help nations improve their diets, production and marketings, by surveying present needs, resources and practices, and recommending better ones. It will have a small technical and advisory staff, a small budget ($2,500,000 the first year).

Spark plugs of FAO in its birthing period were Canada's able Ambassador to Washington, Lester Bowles ("Mike") Pearson, and jolly, pipe-smoking Frank Lidgett McDougall, an Australian often called "the father of nutrition" because of his long efforts to make that study a science. McDougall incessantly deplores economic nationalism, is determined to do his best to internationalize eating.