Archive - July 19, 2024

John writes —   I have been reading author Doris Kearns Goodwin’s An Unfinished Love Story and I strongly recommend this “personal history of the 1960s” by her. First Doris Kearns Goodwin is a wonderful writer, and has stories to tell about the first days of the Kennedy administration, and the start of the Peace Corps — JFK’s famous introduction of the agency at 2 a.m. in the morning, for example, on the campus of the University of Michigan. Kennedy spoke for 3 minutes, Doris Kearns writes, “Yet something extraordinary transpired: The students took up the challenge he posed. They organized, they held meetings, they sent letters and telegrams to the campaign asking Kennedy to develop plans for a volunteer Peace Corps (it was not then called ‘Peace Corps’). They signed petitions pledging to give not two but three years of their lives to help people in developing countries.” During that . . .