Archive - February 28, 2013

John F. Kennedy is given credit for the remark, “success has a thousand fathers, but failure is an orphan,” and that phrase can easily be applied to the creation of the Peace Corps. A half dozen names come up when the conversation turns to: who thought of the Peace Corps idea in the first place? Elizabeth Cobbs Hoffman in her excellent book All You Need Is Love: The Peace Corps and the Spirit of the 1960s, published by Harvard Press, points out that between 1958 and 1965, “nearly every industrialized nation started volunteer programs to spread the message of economic development and international goodwill.” Before that we had Herbert Hoover’s Commission for the Relief of Belgium and the Marshall Plan of the Truman administration. Theodore Roosevelt sent the U.S. Navy on a grand tour of the world following his negotiation of the Treaty of Portsmouth, and Woodrow Wilson brought arms to bear to . . .

[Thanks to Marian Haley Beil (Ethiopia 1962-64) we have this blog item.] This remix of JFK’s inaugural speech is very moving. The message is just as real as it was then. It includes two RPCVs. Along the right side of the main film screen is smaller screens with interviews with the speakers. If you link to the Peace Corps films more will come up on the right including JFK talking about the Peace Corps in March ’61 – and others RPCVs speaking about the Peace Corps. JFK50: Let the Word Go Forth “Let the Word Go Forth” is a film of many faces and voices re-creating President John F. Kennedy’s inaugural address. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qqnRRO3zziI&list=EC0C8EA12816C44568 Executive Order 10924: Establishment of the Peace Corps. (1961) The founding of the Peace Corps is one of President John F. Kennedy’s most enduring legacies. Yet it got its start in a fortuitous and unexpected moment. Kennedy, . . .