Food for Peace in Upper Volta, a 1964 USIA photo poster in French

A French-language U.S. Information Agency photo poster, catalog date 11 September 1964, distributed in Beirut, describes the American Food for Peace program in Upper Volta. It opens with a maxim from the country's health minister, Dr. Paul Lambin, and shows American milk powder, flour and maize reaching schoolchildren through Catholic Relief Service (NAID 6949220).

What it shows

The archive lists six photographs: American milk powder and flour in a warehouse, schoolboys lining up for porridge, and staff of Catholic Relief Service with local workers. A U.S. flag appears beside an outline of Upper Volta. The headline is a quotation, and a long central text describes the program.

LA SANTE MONDIALE: CONDITION ESSENTIELLE DE LA PAIX MONDIALE"

DR. PAUL LAMBIN, Ministre de la Santé Publique, République de la Haute-Volta

Quinze pays africains coopèrent à l'heure actuelle avec les Etats-Unis d'Amérique en vue de réaliser un projet spécial, destiné à améliorer et protéger la santé de leurs citoyens. [...]

[...] Chaque année, plus de cent mille personnes sont nourries dans le cadre de ce programme.

Issuer and audience

The U.S. Information Agency is the issuer of record, in the National Archives series of posters distributed in Asia, Latin America and the Middle East. The catalog title says this French edition was distributed in Beirut, though its subject is an African country. The audience is a foreign public, the purpose persuading or winning support, and the source category "Source blurred: contractors, cutouts, buried disclosure." The rights line dates it about 1964.

How to read it

FRAME tags testimonial and transfer. The testimonial is the minister's maxim, which frames American food aid in the words of an African official. The transfer is the flag set beside the map. The captions name local people, from the Catholic Relief Service director and his two assistants to the women cooking the porridge and a town-hall official opening a sack of maize. One caption also says plainly that the children eat "un surplus d'aliments," surplus food.

That word is the most candid line on the sheet. The poster calls the food surplus and, in the same text, presents the program as a partnership. The sheet makes no claim beyond feeding people. Its persuasion lies in who gets the credit: the text praises Upper Volta's government for using the food "sagement," wisely, while the flag makes sure the reader knows where it came from.

A USIA health sheet for Mexico from the same year is Public Health with the Alliance. Other sheets printed for audiences abroad are listed on the USIA hub.