Discussion on “How the US Government sold the Peace Corps to the American Public”
Bill Josephson Responds to Wendy Melillo’s “How the US Government Sold the Peace Corps to the American Public.” I have tried to make sure that what I have received is the complete document that she published in Conversation. I’m not sure that I have succeeded. I disagree with Ms. Melillo’s statement that “Peace Corps advertising emphasize myths about heroes, adventure . . . But fighting communism was among the agency’s original foreign policy purposes, according to Peace Corps historians and other scholars.” Ms. Melillo cites virtually no authority for that statement. The origins of the Peace Corps include the bills sponsored by then Senator Hubert H. Humphrey for a point four youth corps, Representative Henry Reuss and others, particularly Congressmen who had had missionary experience. Point four, of course, was President Harry S Truman’s proposal for technical assistance worldwide. “Fighting communism” was not a theme of the University of . . .
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John Turnbull
More on my postings about newly-independent and newly-named "Ghana". At the Ghana Geological Survey, which hosted all the newly-arrived PCV…