GRUNTLED BASE:

Support for Mr. Bush on Sudan Policies (Letter to the Editor, August 14, 2004)

The Aug. 3 news story "Evangelicals Urge Bush to Do More for Sudan" suggested that evangelicals are exerting political pressure on a reluctant White House. Not so.

[T]he evangelical base strongly supports what this administration has done. Former education secretary William J. Bennett, Carl Anderson of the Knights of Columbus and I met with Bush adviser Karl Rove a week after President Bush was inaugurated, and Sudan was at the top of our agenda. The president's actions have been swift, decisive and effective. He laid out in May 2001 for the American Jewish Congress an agenda of human rights. He then appointed John C. Danforth as special envoy to Sudan, supported and signed the Sudan Peace Act, put huge administrative pressures on Sudan and effectively stopped the civil war in the south in which animists as well as Christians were being persecuted.

I and many evangelical leaders believe that Mr. Bush, through Secretary of State Colin L. Powell (note his recent visit), is doing everything possible to end the genocide. [...]

CHARLES COLSON

Chairman

Prison Fellowship Ministries

Reston