Foreign Aid Program Needs Rethinking

The opinion-page article ``Dispelling a Few Myths About US Foreign Aid,'' Feb. 2, is timely and welcome. Regrettably, however, the author focuses on past successes, such as the Marshall Plan, without acknowledging the present-day shortcomings of our foreign-aid program.

Since the signing of the Camp David Accords, close to half of the United States foreign-aid dollars go to just two countries: Israel and Egypt. And Israel receives, on a per-capita basis, about 20 times as much aid as does its Arab neighbor. It is time to refocus our aid program toward humanitarian concerns of feeding the hungry and building the economies of poor nations, rather than arming the nations of the Middle East at taxpayer expense and declaring it ``foreign aid.'' It is about time to plug that sinkhole. Paul D. Noursi, Silver Spring, Md. Teacher's Fulbright grant enhances American school

I enjoyed the articles ``Senator Fulbright Had a Global Vision,'' Feb. 22, and ``World Travelers For Peace,'' Feb 13.

My junior high school math teacher was a recipient of the scholarship. The Fulbright program enabled her to travel to New Zealand to teach math ideas to the elementary teachers on both the North and the South Islands last summer.

Not only has her experience helped the New Zealanders, but it has helped our school as well. She shares with us what she learned from New Zealand, making our math program even better.

The Fulbright program is one of the most important and worthy programs that our government has today. Christian Stayner, Sherman Oaks, Calif.