Archive - November 29, 2018

“I’m torn between going into high megaton, overkill, intercontinental ballistic missiles, or the Peace Corps.” Reprinted from the Wall Street Journal, 1964 

Timmy Napolitano came to the Peace Corps in March, 1961, “on loan” from the National Institutes of Health. For her, the move was permanent—or as permanent as anything in the Peace Corps—although she remained “on loan” for two months after responding to directions to “come now. We’ll arrange your papers later.” If the Peace Corps is not as hectic now as it was then, a certain hectic quality has continued to linger around Mrs. Napolitano’s career. After helping to organize the Near East-South Asia Regional Office, she settled down to pay particular attention to South Asia when queries about the Peace Corps came from Ceylon. In answer to these queries, Mrs. Napolitano was dispatched on October 9, 1961, to the five-year-old island nation off the southern tip of India. In a stay of four months, she surveyed the island from Jaffna to Matara and from wet western coast to the . . .

(The Washington Post,1997)