Naming the Peace Corps

Those of us who follow the history of the Peace Corps agency know the term “peace corps” came to public attention during the 1960 presidential election. In one of JFK’s last major speeches before the November election he called for the creation of a “Peace Corps” to send volunteers to work at the grass roots level in the developing world.

However, the question remains: who said (or wrote) “peace corps” for the very first time? Was it Kennedy? Was it his famous speech writer Ted Sorensen? Or Sarge himself? But – as in most situations – the famous term came about because of some young kid, usually a writer, working quietly away in some back office that dreams up the language. In this case the kid was a graduate student between degrees who was working for the late Senator Hubert Horatio Humphrey.

Today, fifty years after the establishment of the agency in March of 1961, it is generally acknowledged that Peter Grothe, now the Director of International Student Programs at the Monterey Institute of International Studies, authored the term in the spring of 1960. I learned about the history of the naming from Peter when we exchanged a series of emails a few years ago.

“There would have been no Peace Corps without John F. Kennedy being elected President,” Peter told me first when he wrote me on April 19, 2006. The term “peace corps” came about when Peter, then Senator Humphrey’s Foreign Relations Adviser, drafted a bill in May of 1960 and used the words “peace corps.” This was on the eve of the U-2 incident and the West Virginia primary which Kennedy won, a victory that showed a Catholic could win in a traditional protestant state, and, therefore, could win a general election.

“I gave the name “Peace Corps,” [in this draft of a Humphrey sponsored foreign assistance bill] in order to be consistent with the Senator’s Peace theme,” Peter explained. [Humphrey was also proposing an “education for peace” bill]. “I first, toying round, gave it the name “Works for Peace Corps,” but that seemed too cumbersome,” Peter remembers, “so I just shortened it to “Peace Corps” and Senator Humphrey approved. Some said that it sounded ‘communistic.’ Other said that it sounded too militaristic (corps). But somehow it stuck!”

Peter also added this important – and missing – piece of information about his involvement with the “peace corps” idea. “When I left Humphrey to go back to do my Ph.D. work, I asked him if I could take the idea to Kennedy, who, by that time, had won the Democratic nomination. Humphrey said, ‘of course!’ I drafted a speech I hoped JFK would use in the campaign and took it to the head of Kennedy’s speech writers in the campaign, Archibald Cox.

“I told Cox we had received an enormous amount of mail, many of it from organized letter writing by Protestant groups, because the Peace Corps reminded them of action-oriented, Protestant missionary work. Cox listened to this because, as you know, no Catholic had ever been elected to the presidency.

“I returned to Stanford and was in the Cow Palace in San Francisco the night Kennedy chose to give the Peace Corps speech I had written. There were some changes, but about 75% of his speech was what I had written. The major change was that the Humphrey bill had the Peace Corps as an alternative to the draft, and Kennedy removed that provision (good politics!). I sat there in disbelief of Kennedy’s giving MY speech and I said to myself, “if the Lord wants to take me right now, Lord, I am ready to go.”

Well, the Lord didn’t take Peter Grothe that night. He is still with us, and if nothing else, as he says today, he is forever “a footnote in Peace Corps trivia history.”

Thank you, Peter, for giving us a name that, as you say, has stuck.

4 Comments

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  • Peter…I hope to see you at the Anniversary! We all need to stand and give Peter our appreciation…Peace Corps…it has such a special ring to it! Bob
    Bob Arias
    Peace Corps Response Volunteer/Paraguay 2010-2011
    RPCV-Colombia 1964-1966

  • Great story. I always remembered the JFK did not originate the name “Peace Corps” but he was the one to give it impetus. Staff members are rarely given credit they deserve. Peter Grothe, you are one smart cookie. During the early 1960’s I lived to join the Peace Corps which I did in 1964. Thank you, Peter.

    Terry Kennedy
    Gardena, California

  • Peace education was the theme of the Peace Corps speech that Peter wrote back in the 60’s.
    Can’t we morph this experience into an international community service experience for yout in their 20’s from developed nations . . . and ask them to serve the needs of under developed nations.
    Please take care of this John C. and get back to me.

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