Bill Moyers deserves his special place in Peace Corps history. His work with Shriver to create full bipartisan support in the Congress that first year was critical. His role in the creation of the public service advertising campaign for the Peace Corps created a nationwide citizen constituency. These achievements were of unparalleled important.

Moyers got Young and Rubicam to create ads. Moyers interpreted the Peace Corps to them. And those ads meant that all Americans read or heard on the radio or saw on television three or four good sentences about the Peace Corps. The sentences were that Volunteers worked hard, spoke the language, weren’t paid very much, and represented America overseas. The ad became the third public service ad choice of all editors.

Those Moyers/Young and Rubicam ads solidified in the cultural milieu the message that this was a wonderful, different organization of young people and it was ours, our sons and daughters. When we talk about the Peace Corps, we really don’t talk about the Shrivers or Ruppes; we talk about the Volunteers. We talk about our sons and daughters and nephews and cousins and friends who go abroad and devote two years to helping others and they do it right and it works.

We didn’t know it at the time. We thought the ads might help recruitment. We knew we needed public relations, but we never anticipated the ads would produce a fundamental sea change in building the acceptance of the agency in the minds of Americans. This was critical for the Peace Corps. And it was Bill Moyers who did it.

The Peace Corps was the ‘hot’ agency and everyone, of course,  wanted to be connected to Kennedy–if they couldn’t be in the White House–they wanted to be with Shriver and the Peace Corps.

The women at the time were mostly ’second class’ citizens in the world-of-work. They were not, for example, sitting at the ‘big conference table” at Senior Staff meetings. Looking at old black-and-photos of Peace Corps HQ meetings, you might see that Elizabeth (Betty) Forsling Harris had wedged  herself into the group, but that was Betty at her best and few others had her Texas toughness.

In these old photos, most of  the women are in chairs shoved back up against the walls, sitting behind the men and waiting to be called upon for some piece of information that the men had forgotten. There, of course, against the walls and watching the boys at play,  they would amuse themselves by observing all of the  Super Egos trying to impress Shriver.  Looking at these old black-and-white photos one is struck by two things: 1) everyone is smoking; 2) few women at the conference table. It could have been a scene from Mad Men. Actually, come to think of it, in many ways that early Peace Corps was Mad Men!

Jane Campbell Beaven, who worked in the Division of Volunteer Support, and later APCD in Ethiopia before going onto UNICEF, tells of observing the Senior Staff  scribbling notes on yellow legal pads and frantically slipping them  back and forth across the wide waxed conference tables. “They reminded me,” she recalls, “of little third grade boys passing notes behind the teacher’s back.”

The Women Up Against the Wall, however, were powerful in their own right. Some of the noted female staffers were: Maryann Orlando, Sally Bowles, Nancy Gore, Nan McEvoy, Diana MacArthur, Patricia Sullivan, Alice Gilbert, Betty Harris, Ruth Olson, Dorothy Mead Jacobsen.

Several women, particularly Betty Harris and Sally Bowles, heavily influenced agency decisions, especially decisions about the role of women in the Peace Corps. Sally Bowles, for example, would play a silent, and very important role, in advising Sarge. At the time, she was only around twenty-three-years old. Betty Harris would play a large role on the whole role of what would the agency do with the PCVs who became pregnant in the Peace Corps.

Here are quick profiles of some of these women staffers.

Mary Ann Orlando is the one person Sarge brought with him when he left Chicago for the Peace Corps. She was born and raised in Chicago, and went to work at the vast Merchandise Mart in 1946. When Shriver arrived in 1948 to take charge of the Mart, Mary Ann became his secretary and at the start of the Peace Corps had already worked for him for 13 years. Her title at the Peace Corps was Confidential Assistant to the Director. Mary Ann would go with Shriver to OEO, and then later into his private practice. No one–and I mean no one–could get to Shriver in his office unless they could talk their way around Mary Ann Orlando.

Al Gore has has said on a few occasions that his older sister, Nancy Gore, was a Peace Corps Volunteer. While Nancy Gore did have a Peace Corps history, she was never a Volunteer. Nancy was the daughter of Tennessee Senator Albert Gore. She had graduated from Vanderbilt with a degree in history, and had also studied in Monterrey, Mexico, Caen, France, and the Sorbonne. She was a guide at the Brussels World Fair in ‘58, and had travelled in Europe and Asia. Also, as a senator’s daughter, she had worked for the Democratic National Committee, and in the early days of the Peace Corps she had the title of assistant to the Associate Director for Planning and Evaluation, Bill Haddad, who would go onto run for Congress in New York State. [Nancy would later become Bill Moyers' assistant.] At the time Nancy was “dating” [as we said at the time] David Halberstam, who was then writing for The New York Times. In the building at 806 Connecticut Avenue she was known as the “resident Scarlett O’Hara.” Beautiful Nancy was one of the first twelve people working at HQ in March 1961. She would die in 1984 at the age of 46 of lung cancer.

Working with Nancy, sharing an office, was another ‘famous daughter,” Sally Bowles. Sally was the daughter of Ambassador Chester Bowles. She was an honor graduate in history from Smith College where she was editor of the college newspaper and president of the student body. She has traveled and lived in Southeast Asia, India, Mexico, Morocco, France and Spain. She served as legislative assistant to Congressman John Brademas, and as administrative assistant to Solicitor General Archibald Cox. She arrived for work at the Peace Corps on March 1, 1961, and went to work as a Volunteer Liaison Officer in the Division of Volunteer Field Services. Beyond this title, Sarge often called on Sally to make special trips overseas for him, to advice him on the performance of overseas Rep. [Other women in those years would work around official channels to get to Sarge. I remember in Ethiopia how Jane Campbell wrote a personal letter to Sarge in 1965 and asked Sarge to 'overrule' a Peace Corps Directive on behalf of an Ethiopian PCV. Sarge did.] 

Bluestocking Nan Tucker McEvoy, Deputy Director of Africa Program, was a reporter who had covered state politics in California, national politics in Washington and international conferences and events during ten years with The San Francisco Chronicle, The New York Herald Tribune and the Washington Post. Her grandfather, Michael de Young, founded the San Francisco Chronicle in 1865. As the only child of Phyllis de Young Tucker, she inherited one-third ownership of the Chronicle Publishing Company and headed the board from 1981 to 1995. Today, she owns a 550 acre ranch in California and is the largest producer of organic estate-grown olive oil in the nation.

There was also the famous West Africa desk officer who Peace Corps Evaluator Fletcher Knebel captured wonderfully in his 1966 novel on the Peace Corps, The Zinzin Road.

Knebel called his character Maureen Sutherland, “…a slim, willowy young woman, stylishly dressed….She wore elongated dark glasses, and a sheaf of black hair fell loosely over one eye. Her skin, as creamy as enameled china, hinted of regular facials and a variety of expensive oils and ointments.”

Sutherland was based exactly on a legendary Africa Region desk officer. She was famous for flying into West Africa for a brief, whirlwind fact-finding trip, which she breezily referred to as a ‘look/see.’

Knebel describes his PC/W official on a visit to Africa–”Miss Sutherland lilted on for half an hour, festively dropping names from Lagos to Washington…she gave a glittering panorama of the world of great affairs, its intrigues, its grand policies and even its illicit loves…She concluded on a pitch of finishing-school breathlessness and looked about brightly as thought waiting for applause.”

All true. But she was a good desk office. She would late in the day go down to the Selection Office and pull the files and look through the applicants and pick the PCVs she wanted for West Africa. Those were the days when as an Overseas Rep you needed a Desk Officer who could work the Selection  system if you wanted the best PCVs. Believe me, she could work the system. Among the Man Men of the Peace Corps, she held her own, and beat them at their game of passing notes across the wide waxed conference table, and she did it right under Shriver’s nose.

Steps to donate:
1. Go to “http://www.facebook.com/l/a08f8;www.peacegorps.gov”
2. Click on “donations”
3. Click on “View all Country Funds”
4. Click on “Benin Country Fund”
5. Click on “Donate”
6. Please make your contribution, and in the comments section, it is IMPERATIVE to specify “Kate Puzey Girls’ Camp Commemorative Fund” in order for the funds to be routed to the appropriate account.

The contribution process is anonymous. However, if you’d like, you can send an email to katepuzeyfund@gmail.com after you’ve donated and they will send an annual report once the camps have finished. If you have any questions, please do not hesitate to ask at the email above.

Dear RPCV Family,

A dear friend and fellow member of the Peace Corps Community was tragically killed in Benin, West Africa on March 12, 2009.  Those of us who knew her miss the warmth, passion, and radiance that she so gracefully exuded.  She was a selfless individual who wanted nothing but to give, learn, and live life to its fullest.  Please join me in a day of service in Kate’s memory.  Where ever you may be, please take a moment to light a candle to honor her spirit, or take an hour or two to give back to your community. 

Please view this YouTube link created by Kate’s uncle.  It highlights her spirit, powerful presence, and impact on this world during her time here:  http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Nv0veeAVFjQ

Kate Puzey in Benin

A article today in the Forsyth County News in Georgia written by Julie Arrington talks about the family of Kate Puzey who was killed in March a year ago in Badjoude, Benin. Her mother, Lois Puzey, says that Kate discovered a co-teacher — not a Peace Corps Volunteer — was sexually abusing some of the female students at the school where they worked.

“Co-teachers and other students were upset and they came to Kate to try to get some help, to contact someone and try to get him out of the school,” Mrs. Puzey told the reporter. “She [Kate] tried to do that anonymously and unfortunately the anonymity was broken.”

Puzey said her daughter’s murder happened within days of her reporting the other teacher.

Kate Puzey’s body was found March 12, 2009. She reportedly died the night before.

A video about her has been posted online and Peace Corps Volunteers have put up a Facebook page in Puzey’s honor. The page encourages others to participate in a day of service in her memory.

Three people, including the suspect and his brother, were arrested a short time later. They have remained in jail since.

“We feel like she was a hero and we wanted people to know that,” Puzey said. “She was an amazingly courageous and compassionate person who stood up for those that couldn’t protect themselves.”

The case was originally set for trial in Benin last fall, but has been postponed until November.

Puzey said the Peace Corps was initially helpful and supportive. Eventually, she and her family weren’t getting the answers they needed.

She, along with members of a small advocacy group formed on her daughter’s behalf, went to Washington, D.C. a couple of weeks ago to get those answers from Peace Corps officials.

“That was a very positive and productive meeting in the end,” she said. “We also spoke to congressmen and senators that we felt could help us find out what we needed.”

Senator Johnny Isakson came to Kate’s funeral and has been very supportive of the family.

Kate Puzey joined the Peace Corps in July 2007. She was scheduled to return home last summer.

Ann Lounsbery Owens in the Ethiopia I training book

Ann Lounsbery Owens (Ethiopia 1962-64) had a letter home from Ethiopia to her mother that has just been published in a new book entitled,  Letters to Jackie: Condolences From a Grieving Nation.

Ann lives in Seattle and a reporter for KING5 TV emailed me about where they might find Ann Owens.  I was able to help the station and last night, and again this morning, a short segment was broadcast about her letter, Kennedy, and being an Ethiopia PCV all those years ago.

Here’s a link to their web site, KING5.com

http://www.king5.com/video/featured-videos/Seattle-woman-reflects-on-letter-sent-to-Jackie-Kennedy-87289642.html

Charlie Peters, for example, who went onto start the Washington Monthly.   “Charlie,” said Wiggins, “was one of those insightful, appreciative, wonderful minds. We didn’t have many exceptional minds in the Peace Corps, but Charlie’s really is exceptional, and what he did with the evaluation function was what needed to be done and it was first rate.”

What about Frank Mankiewicz? Frank would be hired by Bobby Kennedy to be his press person after the Peace Corps. “Frank, given all I’ve said about volunteerism and amateurism and anti-professionalism and all of that, he was willing to drop Volunteers by parachute, and he did it and made it go. He talked the success of it, and denounced the critics and always dealt with Shriver and he’d always end-run me; he always pissed me off. He had a relationship with Shriver and I’d wake up and having been had, just out of the loop. But I had enough loop to survive. He and I tended to disagree on almost everything, but I have a high admiration for this wonderful man.”

Bill Josephson, who with Wiggins, had written ‘The Towering Task’…”Josephson,” said Warren, “was in some ways much closer to Shriver than I was. Josephson was an incisive critic. He worked like a son of a bitch, ground out the stuff that had to be done, understood the legal stuff. He was very important in the producing of that first report to the President and the writing of the Executive Order that created the Peace Corps. He played a key role across the board in the first period and then in the administration of the Peace Corps. To put it politely, he was less than friendly toward everyone when it came to keeping the Peace Corps on the straight and narrow.”

And finally I asked Warren about Jack Hood Vaughn who was the second Peace Corps Director. “I worked more with Vaughn than any other person in my life, four separate long-term assignments, back to back. Mostly I have co-workers; Vaughn was a friend. Vaughn and I traveled at length in Bolivia together, the two of us, when we were both in the ICA mission to Bolivia. He had a lot of Teddy Roosevelt in him. He was a former prizefighter. On the other hand, he’s cautious, conservative and sometimes not terribly involved in some of the broader sweep of things. Vaughn stands up and is counted and is determined. He was a good administrator. He was an excellent person. He was my friend.”

He goes onto say,”Peace Corps and Teach for America represent the best ethic of public service. But at a time when those programs can’t meet the demand from young people seeking to give back, we need a new initiative: Teach for the Wor The program would be open to Americans 18 and over. It could be used for a gap year between high school and college, but more commonly would offer a detour between college and graduate school or the real world.”

The host country would provide room and board through a host family. To hold down costs, the Americans would be unpaid and receive only airplane tickets, a local cellphone and a tiny stipend to cover bus fares and anti-malaria bed nets.

We can all think of draw backs and problems with this program, based on our own experience, but the idea of introducing this notion of ”what to do with our young” into the nation’s dialogue ain’t bad. (Of course, we all know you have to first get them out of bed!)

A better plan might be just to give all our kids a one way ticket to ’somewhere’ and tell them they can’t come back until they earn enough money to pay their own way home. That’s one way to teach kids how to live in the world.

Anyway, check Teach for the World in today’s TIMES.

 When Shriver and the Senior Staff reached Accra, Ghana, their first stop in their round-the-world trip, he was sick. He had never been sick in his adult life, and now he had laryngitis and could bearly speak. That turned out to be a blessing. As everyone liked to say, the purpose of the Peace Corps was to listen and learn. Wofford  would write in his book  Of Kennedy & Kings,  Shriver’s laryngitis was providential. Ghana’s president, Nkrumah, was also known as Osagyefo, meaning “Savior.”  He could only be effectively addressed by the respectful attitude of listening.

In Ghana, Kwama Nkrumah, then the leading spokesman for African nationalism, was concerned  about the Peace Corps being guises for CIA infiltration of his country. The Peace Corps had, in a sense, an ace in the hole. Franklin Williams, who was with Shriver on this trip, had been Kwama’s fraternity brother at Lincoln University, the black university in rural Pennsylvania where they had both been students.

Nkrumah agreed to take English teachers as long as they did not “propagandize or spy or try to subvert the Ghanaian system.” And he wanted only ‘highly qualified Americans, not ‘ordinary” graduates from American colleges and universities. And he wanted the  PCVs in-country by August. The first Peace Corps–50 Peace Corps teachers–(and none of them ‘ordinary’)– arrived singing the Ghanian national anthen in Twi.

On to Nigeria!

In Nigeria, which was in its first year of independence, Shriver and the Boys met President Nnamdi Azikiwe, Prime Minister Tafawa Balewa, and leaders of the main regional governments. According to Wofford, President Azikiwe (”Zik”), was the first Ibo to go to school in the United States. He had been impressed by Jefferson’s view of education and by America’s success–through land grant colleges and universities–in shaping a curriculum appropriate to a new land. He wanted Peace Corps teachers to help Nigeria achieve a similar democratic system of education. At the time there was only places in Nigeria’s elementary schools for 14,000 students out of more than two million eligible children. The government could build schools, but there were no teachers. PCVs teachers were part of the answer.

When they reached India, there were, however, other problems. India was the hardest and most critical test of the trip. But Shriver had Wofford who had been to India with his wife when they was just out of college. The couple had written a book about their ‘Peace Corps experience.’  With Wofford as his guide, Shriver made his way. The key was Prime Minister Nehru. Wofford warned Shriver to expect a lecture from Nehru to the effect that India was the mother source of all inspiration, that Nehru would not at first evince much interest in the Peace Corps, but that in the end, Nehru would somewhat begrudgingly invite a handful of Volunteers–entirely as a favor to the United State. Nothing more.

India did agree at first to take 25 PCVs. This  was a ‘green light’ which helped open the door in a number of other Third World countries. Shriver then managed to up the number of those first PCVs to 75. By the end of Charlie Houston’s tour as the Peace Corps CD, in December 1964, there were approximately four hundred Volunteers working in the Punjab and several other sites in India.

In Pakistan, President Ayub Khan wondered whether Volunteers would be able to implement rural public works and irrigation projects. In Burma, U NU asked Shriver if he really believed young Americans could compete with Chinese Communists who had already offered “revolutionary” assistance.

Shriver’s journey abroad to ”invite invitations” was a crucial step in ensuring that the Peace Corps would be successfully established, according to Gerald T. Rice in his book, The Bold Experiment.

The team arrived back in D.C. in May, 1961. Shriver returned to Washington with invitations from all eight countries he had visited to send a total of 3,000 Volunteers to begin Peace Corps programs.

Rice went onto say of the trip: ”It not only destroyed the skeptical view that foreign governments would not want young American meddling in their internal affairs, but also gave the Peace Corps organizers an insight into what Third World leaders felt was needed and what they would accept. In the six short months since Kennedy’s first announcement of the idea at the Cow Palace, the Peace Corps had found a mission and established an identity.”

The Peace Corps, Warren said, ”was not an outgrowth of development experience. It didn’t have a constituency in the Congress, the press, or other leadership institutions in the U.S. nor did it have a constituency abroad.”

This proved to be an immediate and immense problem. Kennedy had created a Peace Corps and no one wanted it! There were 25,000 potential PCVs waiting to go do something for America, but no Third World country asked for them.

Getting requests for PCVs was a major problem. “Shriver almost terminated me in those early months,” Warren recalled in his interview. “He would never admit that, and I am not sure if it was conscious. Hell, getting overseas requests was my function and I couldn’t get any.”

Wiggins sent out the word via normal diplomatic channels, but no one replied. Shriver was  antsy. Kennedy was antsy. Then Kennedy decided to send Shriver overseas and seek placements for Volunteers. “My ass was saved by that foreign trip,” said Wiggins, “and I wasn’t even on it!”

On April 22, Shriver began a twenty-six-day venture in personal diplomacy that took him to Ghana, Nigeria, Pakistan, India, Burma, Malaysia, Thailand, and the Philippines. With him were Ed Bayley, Bill Kelly, Franklin Williams, and Harris Wofford.

Who were these guys?

Edwin Bayley was the first director of public information for the Peace Corps, coming from Wisconsin where he had been the executive assistant to Gaylord Nelson, the governor. (Wofford writes in his book, Of Kennedys & Kings, that  Bayley always complained Shriver was running the Peace Corps as if it was the last stages of a presidential campaign.) Bayley left the Peace Corps early on to become information director for AID.

Bill Kelly was in charge of contracts. He came to the Peace Corps on May 15, 1961, to organize its contracts office from scratch.

Franklin Williams was the chief of the division of private organizations, (developing programs through the United Nations) and had great influence within the agency and beyond his title. He had been (since 1958) the assistant attorney general of California, a close friend of Frank Mankiewiez, and had run Kennedy’s black voter registration drive.

Harris Wofford was the first person Shriver called when they put together the Mayflower Hotel Gang to start the Peace Corps. He had worked on the Kennedy campaign with Shriver, would become Kennedy’s civil rights special assistant, and later director of the Ethiopia project and the Peace Corps Representative in Africa.

Traveling around the world, the group arrived in India and met Prime Minister Nehru. In Ghana they met Kwame Nkrumah. In Tanganyika it was Prime Minister Julius Nyerere. Shriver got permission to send PCVs to India, Ghana, and Tanganyika. They got permission, everyone on the trip agreed, because Sarge charmed the leaders of these three countries. Wiggins would say, “If Shriver had not made that trip, we would not have had a Peace Corps.”

Wofford would write in a memorandum to Kennedy on May 25, 1961, summing up their trip, “Shriver is a born diplomat. I have never been witness to so successful an international operation. His meetings with government officials, newsmen and private citizens all produced good results for the Peace Corps and U.S. relations. Our ambassador and other overseas officers in every country expressed to me and others their admiration and appreciation of Shriver, their amazement at how much was accomplished in such a short time, and their increased hopes for the Peace Corps in their respective countries.”

With three commitments from developing countries the Peace Corps was in the words of Warren Wiggins, “in business.”