ON SEPTEMBER 8, 1983 President Reagan appointed a Task Force on Food Assistance and asked it to determine if the $19 billion a year going into federal food programs were failing to protect the poor in the United States from hunger and malnutrition. Before any appointments were actually made, the press and various “food activists” had already mounted an attack on some of the prospective members, including the author of this piece, who had had the audacity, in hearings before the Congress, to doubt that there was a serious national problem of undernutrition, and to question the accuracy of claims made for the achievements of the Special Supplemental Food Program for Women, Infants and Children (WIC).