Very few teachers of Zen, a famously inward-directed religion with a tradition of monastic meditation, get involved with antipoverty efforts.

Wendell E. Primus, his chief assistant, had been a Capitol Hill legend for finding money for antipoverty efforts.

Congress should pass a law mandating that a decent percentage of the foreign aid budget go to basic antipoverty efforts.

In that post he oversaw the $2.58 billion National Solidarity Program, an antipoverty effort that Mr. Salinas considers a benchmark of his social agenda.

In Venezuela, though, the government's oil policy is seen as pragmatic, aimed at obtaining capital to help Pdvsa grow while providing the revenues needed to finance the government's antipoverty efforts.

Campaigners tell how the Head Start program, which would change the course of antipoverty efforts, ran into the state's segregationist establishment, led by Senator John C. Stennis.

Republicans and Democrats said they were disturbed by his proposal to limit largely to antipoverty efforts the department's multibillion-dollar Community Development Block Grant program.

By then, New York had a mayor, John V. Lindsay, who wanted his antipoverty efforts to win similar notice.

Since then, the economy has faltered, and many antipoverty efforts have failed.

Mr. Salinas sought to ease the social and political impact of his austerity with a $4 billion-a-year antipoverty effort, the National Solidarity Program.