Who Was The First Peace Corps Volunteer?
Lately there has been endless talk among RPCVs about who was the first PCV. Perhaps I’m partially to blame with my blogging about the early days of the Peace Corps. Or is it because we are reaching the milestone of the 50? Some RPCVs are drawing on faulty memories, old plane tickets, anecdotal incidents, typewritten letters from Shriver, and yellow copies of telegrams folded and unfolded over the last fifty years, to make their historical (if not hysterical) claim. “Yes, it was I! I was the first PCV!” Well, let me take another tact. Let me suggest to you who really was the first Volunteer. We can end the guessing game, solve the mystery, and all go on and argue about something else. As we said back in the Sixties: Here’s the skinny. The Peace Corps began in a light drizzle at 2 a.m. in the early morning of October . . .
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Years ago it was reported that a fellow by the name of Thomas Livingston of California was the very first…