Archive - January 9, 2011

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See new list: published September 26, 2017
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God! The Peace Corps Does Something Right
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Early '60s Analysis of Youth Service
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RPCVs and the FBI–In Case You Missed It!

See new list: published September 26, 2017

Old References – obsolete Here is a quick guide to the websites and other locators for public records of the Peace Corps that I used in the past. Peace Corps is undergoing a transition in its webpages. I have found it increasingly difficult to locate records that were previously easily accessible.  It could be because I lack the necessary technical expertise to adequately search the website. This website, Peace Corps World Wide, is an an excellent source for Peace Corps History. RPCVs John Coyne and Marian Haley Beil have been preserving Peace Corps History by promoting Peace Corps writers and publishing first person accounts about Peace Corps and its Volunteers for over 35 years. This is so important because there is no Peace Corps Library. I could find no master catalog of all public Peace Corps documents. I would also add that Peace Corps Volunteers are private citizens doing public work. . . .

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God! The Peace Corps Does Something Right

The new Peace Corps PSA has just come out. Allison Price, press office for the  Peace Corps, gets something right. Thank you, Allison. It is ( the PSA) on the mark. The right tone and message. Wow.  I’m stunned. Peace Corps Releases New TV Public Service Announcement WASHINGTON, D.C., January 6, 2011 – The Peace Corps has released a new television public service announcement (PSA) designed to increase awareness of service opportunities overseas.  The 2011 TV spot coincides with the agency’s 50th anniversary and portrays, with humor and poignancy, the life of a recently returned Peace Corps volunteer (RPCV) who spent two years living and working with a community overseas.  Click HERE to view the television PSA. There are two versions of the PSA.  The original is a 60-second spot, while there is also an edited 30-second version.  Both feature a string of short conversations that unfold throughout a volunteer’s daily interactions as . . .

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Early '60s Analysis of Youth Service

IN EARLY 1960, Maurice (Maury) L. Albertson, director of the Colorado State University Research Foundation, received a Point-4 (precursor to USAID) contract to prepare a Congressional Feasibility Study of the Point-4 Youth Corps called for in the Reuss-Neuberger Bill, an amendment to the Mutual Security Act. The Youth Corps was “to be made up of young Americans willing to serve their country in public and private technical assistance missions in far-off countries, and at a soldier’s pay.” Then in late 1961, Public Affairs Press in Washington, D.C. published, New Frontiers for American Youth: Perspective on the Peace Corps written by Maury Albertson, and co-authored with Andrew E. Rice and Pauline E. Birky. The book was based on their Point-4 study. According to the authors, “The roots of the Peace Corps idea . . . stretch wide and deep, . . . .” They were referring to a number of volunteer programs that were early instances . . .

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RPCVs and the FBI–In Case You Missed It!

The recent reports how the FBI had subpoenaed information on the social media website Twitter about Julian Assange and several other prominent people connected to WikiLeaks, includind an Icelandic lawmaker brought to mind when the FBI was investigating RPCVs. This was all during the Vietnam era. The Committee of Returned Volunteers (CRV)–the first national organization of RPCVs organized in 1965 actively opposed the Vietnam war. Their copious writings–newsletters, information kits, analytical papers–portrayed the goals of U.S. foreign policy as exploitative. The true function of the Peace Corps, they believed, was to mask this imperialism by putting a warm and friendly face on America’s presence overseas. CRV members were among the marches showered with tear gas at the 1968 Democratic convention, and in 1970 they occupied the Peace Corps building in Washington for 36 hours to protests the student killings by National Guardsmen at Kent State and Jackson State Universities, as well as . . .

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