Archive - 2016

Segments of the U.S. Press were all over the postcard incident. The U.S. News and World Report wrote, “From the moment of its inception, despite laudable aims, the Peace Corps was bound to run into trouble.” They condemned the naivete of the entire concept and claimed, “this is only the first big storm.”   Commonweal wrote in an editorial “The problem involved is really bigger than the Peace Corps for it reflects the gap that exists between the wealthy U.S. and most of the rest of the world. Given this fact, incidents like the postcard affair are bound to happen.”   Former President Eisenhower added his two cents, saying the “postcard” was evidence of the worthlessness of Kennedy’s new idea. However, columnist James Weschsler of the New York Post came to the aid of the Peace Corps and Marjorie. “Nothing in the card was sinister. It contained the instinctive expression . . .

Tom Hayden, who played a key role in student activism of the ’60s and went on to play a role in higher education as a California legislator in the ’80s, died Sunday at the age of 76. While Hayden was one of the founders of Students for a Democratic Society, and was the chief author of the Port Huron Statement, which defined the goals of SDS and other activist groups of the ’60s to create a more just society in the United States. (and also known as one of Jane Fonda’s husbands), he also played a role in launching the Peace Corps. Harris Wofford points out in his book, Of Kennedys and Kings how Tom Hayden, editor of the Michigan Daily, was at the Student Union in Michigan when Kennedy spoke to the crowd of students and Wofford writes: “(Hayden) followed the development of the student organization with amazement. It had been an era in . . .

Press Release from Peace Corps https://www.peacecorps.gov/news/library/peace-corps-office-inspector-general-receives-two-awards-excellence/   WASHINGTON, D.C., Oct. 21, 2016 – The Peace Corps Office of Inspector General (OIG) received two awards for excellence at the Council of the Inspectors General on Integrity and Efficiency’s (CIGIE) 19th Annual Awards Ceremony held on October 20, 2016. CIGIE presented the Award for Excellence in Audits to an OIG team for their “Audit of the Peace Corps’ Healthcare Benefits Administration Contract.” This audit examined how the Peace Corps, through its contractor, processes claims for medical services provided to its Volunteers. The audit team found serious flaws in the Peace Corps’ contracting practices and the contractor did not fully follow the terms in the contract. The audit found Peace Corps spent $1.2 million on services that couldn’t be verified by records. Expert Jeffrey Lee, Lead Auditor Snehal Nanavati, Auditor Ann Lawrence, Former Assistant Inspector General for Audits Bradley Grubb, Assistant Inspector General for . . .

By now at Idlewild a half dozen more Peace Corps HQ people had arrived, all having been dispatched from D.C. These were some of the famous original staffers at the agency: Ruth Olson operated as crisis manager for the occasion. She was well versed for the job. She had come to the Peace Corps in the first week of the agency from years of working in the military during World War II; Betty Harris, a former journalist and political operative from Texas was on hand; Tom Matthews had just arrived back from Bermuda. And also arriving unannounced and unexpected, sneaking through the press of people, was Marjorie’s boyfriend from Boston, an  NAACP lawyer. It was here that Marjorie received her handwritten note from JFK. I don’t know how that was arranged, my guess it was done by Bill Moyers, the rising start of the next Johnson administration, and at age 27, the Associate Director for Public Affairs for . . .

Tim Adams arrived at Idlewild Airport to a terminal overwhelmed with press people carrying tape recorders, cameras, and microphones. Michelmore and Ware were about to touch down on a BOAC flight and Adams saddled up to a group of reporters and asked innocently, “Who’s coming in?” Adams thought it might be Grace Kelly, then due back in the States. “It’s that Peace Corps girl,” someone said and Tim’s heart dropped.   Slipping away from the reporters, Adams pulled out his official government Peace Corps ID and got past the customs officials and when the BOAC flight landed pulled Marjorie and Dick Ware into an empty room. The reporters, however, could see them on the other side of Customs, see Tim frantically telephoning Shriver at the Peace Corps Headquarters. Tim asked what he should do. Shriver told him, “Tim, I don’t want the press talking to Michelmore.”   Adams told Shriver . . .

  Dorothy Cann Hamilton, Founder of French Culinary Institute, Dies in Crash at 67 By Sam Roberts New York Times SEPT. 19, 2016 Dorothy Cann Hamilton (Thailand 1972-74) founded the French Culinary Institute in New York in 1984; it produced such famed graduates as Bobby Flay, Wylie Dufresne and Christina Tosi.   Dorothy Cann Hamilton, a food aficionado who started a vocational course that evolved into one of the world’s leading culinary schools, died on Friday on Cape Breton Island in Nova Scotia. She was 67. She died of injuries sustained in an automobile collision, said Bruce McCann, her cousin and the president of the International Culinary Center in California, the West Coast branch of the school that she founded in New York City in 1984 as the French Culinary Institute. She was the chief executive there. The police said her SUV and a truck hauling a camper collided. Ms. Hamilton, . . .

The October 21, 2016 issue of The Chronicle of Higher Education has an edited excerpt of an interview that Kevin Quigley (Thailand 1976-79 & CD Thailand 2013-15) had recently with Chronicle’s Jack Stripling about the college’s unusual approach to decision making, i.e., the students have a major say in what is happening on campus and within the community of 400 students, faculty and staff.. You can watch the interview at: http://www.chronicle.com/article/Video-At-Marlboro-College/237894 Here is the transcript of the short video entitled: “At This College, Students Play a Large Role in Governance” Situated in the foothills of the Green Mountains of southern Vermont, Marlboro College is a small liberal-arts institution of only about 200 undergraduates. One of the college’s most distinctive features is the Town Meeting, a New England–style governance structure that gives everyone, from students to professors to custodial staff, a vote on decisions that range from changes in policy to . . .

I had a cab driver the other day here in Westchester who was a great Trump supporter. He was a white guy who had never been to college, never been in the army, never been in the Peace Corps, never, as far as I could see, done anything for his country. He said Trump would keep jobs in America. I asked him how Trump could keep him driving his taxi and he looked at me in the mirror and shook his head. He had no idea what I was saying. Well, I said, I just read where in Pittsburgh Uber had set up the first driverless taxicabs. The city will be losing over one thousand taxi-driving jobs because of it, once it was fully operational. Also, I read where self-driving vehicles would also replace about 20,000 truck drivers and another 10,000 bus drivers. Now the “drivers” could get ‘better paying’ . . .

Meanwhile back at Murray Frank’s home, the PCVs had assembled and were trying to understand the intense reaction of the Nigerians. Nigeria, newly independent, was surrounded, as Murray put it, “with the visages of the colonial period, including and especially white people who symbolized a colonial past.”   What had quickly emerged in Nigeria was a self-image based on their new freedom, especially among the young intellectuals. These students and others were asking: how could the Americans help us if they were writing letters home about them?   While many of the new PCVs had experienced student protests in the U.S. they were still unprepared for what was directed at them. Could they survive the postcard? They didn’t know. They began to ask themselves: why stay when so many students wanted them to leave?   Other PCVs said. We know Nigeria needs teachers. We can teach. We are not imperialists, . . .

Richard Wiley (Korea 1967-69) is the author of several novels including Soldiers in Hiding, winner of the PEN/Faulkner Award for Fiction and Ahmed’s Revenge, winner of Peace Corps Writers Maria Thomas Fiction Award. He is professor emeritus at the University of Nevada, Las Vegas and now lives in Tacoma, Washington. His new book–just published–is entitled Bob Stevenson and has just been published by Bellevue Literary Press. It is the story of a Dr. Ruby Okada who meets a charming man with a Scottish accent in the elevator of her psychiatric hospital. Unaware that he is an escaping patient, she falls under his spell, and her life and his are changed forever by the time they get to the street. Who is the mysterious man? Is he Archie B. Billingsly, suffering from dissociative identity disorder and subject to brilliant flights of fancy and bizarre, violent fits? Or is he the reincarnation of Robert . . .

One of the early staff  of the Peace Corps that I spoke to about the post card incident was Warren Wiggins, then the Associate Director for the Office of Program Development and Operations, and later to be the Deputy Director. Wiggins told me that the staff in 1961 were waiting for something to happen overseas with the Volunteers. Too many young people were overseas, he said, and there “had to be” an incident of some kind. On the afternoon of October 15, 1961, they got their incident when word reached Washington about Marjorie Michelmore and her postcard. Gathering at HQ on that October Sunday afternoon, the senior staff was initially worried about Marjorie’s life, as well as the lives of the other Volunteers. Wiggins also realized that “The Peace Corps could be thrown out at any moment. It could be the domino theory–first we’re kicked out of Nigeria, then out of Ghana, . . .

In the Fall, 1999 issue of the Friends of Nigeria Newsletter, Frank recalls the incident and those early tense days in Ibadan, Nigeria. Murray writes: The Postcard Affair began October 14, 1961. That was the day Peace Corps Nigeria almost came to an end . . . before it started. And I was in the middle of it all. Nigeria I had arrived in Ibadan early in October. Volunteers were settling into dormitories at the University of Ibadan (then a part of the University of London and called University College of Ibadan) where they would continue the training started at Harvard. I was the Western Region Peace Corps Representative. My family and I arrived in September, ahead of any other Regional Representatives and their families. Brent Ashabranner, who left AID to become Nigeria’s first Peace Corps Director, helped us get settled. We had a house in Bodija, a middle-class development between the center of . . .

  Thanks to John Dougherty, Co-Coordinator, Thirsters, for this notice. * VISIT FROM PEACE CORPS THAILAND GROUP 1 – OCTOBER 20th 2016 Dear Thirsters in Residence: On Thursday, October 20th, some of the folks from Peace Corps Thailand Group 1 will visit with us at McMenamin’s. They are in Portland to celebrate their 55th anniversary on October 17-21. Bob Textor was one of their teachers and a friend until his death, and Bob attended the 50th reunion in Washington, D.C. For more information, visit the Friends of Thailand website: http://www.friendsofthailand.org/thailandrpcvs/groups/thai01/Thai01.html On the website, take a look at Sumner Sharpe’s Recollections, the 1972 January Graduation: Thai I Group and the 50th Anniversary. Sumner talks about Bob Textor in his recollections. At the 1972 graduation and the 50thAnniversary in Washington, DC, there are pictures of Bob. UPCOMING PRESENTATIONS AND DISCUSSION TOPICS: November 3rd: What users want from smart phones – Zara Logue November 10th: . . .