Review of Robert Klein's Being First
Being First: An Informal History of the Early Peace Corps by Robert Klein (Ghana 1961–63) Wheatmark, Inc $19.95 182 pages 2010 Reviewed by Kevin Lowther (Sierra Leone 1963–65) GHANA I — Peace Corps groups were Roman-numeraled in the early years — began with 58 trainees at the University of California at Berkeley. It was July 1961, four months after President John F. Kennedy asked R. Sargent Shriver to establish the Peace Corps. The 58 guinea pigs and their trainers were all too aware that the experiment could rise or fall on the basis of their performance. “That challenge,” Robert Klein writes in Being First, “created a sense of uniqueness which has lasted through the years.” Fifty years, of course, and counting. Klein was a 32-year-old teacher in Harlem when he volunteered. Kennedy’s summons “added a moral dimension” to Klein’s “restless romanticized adventurism.” The group supposedly had been sifted through a . . .
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Three cheers for Bob Klein. I was a member of Ghana-III (that's "3":) and was there when Bob's group, Ghana…