HAITI: The Long Road

Eighteen months ago, before squaring off against world illiteracy on a broad scale, U.N.’s Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO) decided to try a small-scale test of its methods in Haiti’s remote Marbial Valley, where illiteracy was the rule. To the valley six months ago went a team of UNESCO educators to begin the experiment. Last week, Lake Success announced that the project was being suspended. The UNESCO officials, said U.N., had come down with something almost as common in the Marbial Valley as illiteracy: malaria.

U.N. was far from through with Haiti, however. Last week it dispatched a 12-man survey mission to Port-au-Prince. Assignment: to advise the Haitian government on all the island’s problems, including illiteracy.