This article is excerpted from a study sponsored by the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace which began in the summer of 1973. The work was conceived as a relatively limited inquiry into the role of planning in disaster relief, and as it progressed, the scope of the study broadened to include other dimensions of the United States and United Nations response to the tragedy in the Sahel. What follows, however, is but a fragment of the complex story of the disaster and the continuing international relief effort. It is mainly an account of how the crisis was dealt with by the U.S. government. As such, it is only a beginning of the research and analysis that should be prompted by this catastrophe.