Archive - January 2019

On May 2, 1962, the Peace Corps sent Lawrence Williams to Rabat, the capital city of independent Morocco. Williams, then operations officer for French-speaking Africa, joined in discussions which soon led to Peace Corps programs in three countries of West Africa—Morocco, Senegal and the Ivory Coast. These discussions were comparatively brief—a sign that in its second year the Peace Corps was becoming an established institution around the world. In mid-June, Williams went to the Ivory Coast for two weeks, returned briefly to Rabat, and on June 29, took off to Dakar in Senegal. By July 8, he was back in Washington. The program in Morocco called for English teachers and rural community action workers where the emphasis was on surveying and irrigation. The 56 Volunteers who were to carry out this program went into training at California State Polytechnic in San Luis Obispo on October 12, 1962. They arrived in . . .

  Thanks for the ‘heads up’ from Barry Hillenbrand (Ethiopia 1963-65).   Peace Corps Mission and Operations Peace Corps Director Jody Olsen delivered remarks about the volunteer organization’s mission and operations at the Center for Strategic and International Studies. She stressed the Peace Corps’ relevancy and the work of volunteers when they are serving abroad in a host country. https://www.c-span.org/video/?455661-1/jody-olsen-discusses-peace-corps-mission    

In 1947, John Alexander followed his graduation from the George Washington University, where he received his degree in economics, by entering Government service. He was promptly sent overseas, the beginning for him of ten years’ uninterrupted activity in the nation’s Foreign Service. Before he returned to take an administrator’s desk in Washington, he had acquire a working familiarity with the overseas side of foreign aid operations. Starting out as an economist with the U.S. Military Government in Germany, Alexander worked for two years on taxation and budget problems in Berlin and Stuttgart. He was then transferred to the U.S. Commissioner’s Office under the State Department and assigned first to Frankfurt, then to Bonn. He concluded his German tour with the Economic Cooperation Administration, a predecessor agency to AID, working on problems of occupation costs and the financing of the North Atlantic Treaty Organizing. In 1954, Alexander was sent half way . . .

“They (the Volunteers) have done a very good job, mixing with the people and encouraging self-help measures. We hope to get more of them.” –Prime Minister Rashidi Kawawa of Tanganyika. “The Peace Corps I think is a wonderful idea. I think it is terrific. There is no better way to show the world what we are than to have our young people, acting just as themselves, going throughout these under developed countries.”—News commentator Richard C. Hottelet “Just a year ago many people were holding their fingers crossed. ….We know, a year later, that these bright and dedicated Peace Corpsmen of ours stood the test.” –Farmers Union Herald “I hope that when they come back, many of them will decide to make the Foreign Service their life work. If they do, we will have a better chance for survival.”–Max Lerner New York Post. “I have had an opportunity to meet many . . .