Wish Senator Wofford a Happy 90th Birthday – Shhhhhh… this part is a surprise
A PEACE CORPS MEMORY Looking back, and I have told my story before, about 1960 as an intern at WGBH-TV…
While most people know Harris Wofford for his work on civil rights and his time as a U.S. Senator (D-PA), he is known best in the Peace Corps as a special assistant to President John F. Kennedy, close friend of Sargent Shriver, and a key person with Shriver in creating the Peace Corps.
Harris will celebrate his 90th birthday on April 9 and the NPCA is preparing a proclamation from the Peace Corps community to honor
Harris and RPCV Concetta Bencivenga (Thailand)
to honor Senator Wofford on his birthday.
The NPCA is inviting all RPCVs to send along letters, cards, and gifts which they will deliver to Harris along with the proclamation. Please send along anything you’d like to include to their office to arrive no later than Friday, April 8. Address cards,letters and gifts to:
Senator Harris Wofford
c/o National Peace Corps Association
1900 L Street NW, Suite 610
Washington, DC 20036
Is it possible to do this electronically — letters, pictures, etc.? What would be the email address to send such things?
I have no idea, Neil, but my guess is no
A PEACE CORPS MEMORY
Looking back, and I have told my story before, about 1960 as an intern at WGBH-TV meeting JFK twice, once seeking the Democratic Party nomination and the second time AS the nominee, both when he was the guest on Louis Lyons’ (Nieman Journalism Foundation Curator, Harvard) news program on which I was the assistant. On the first, Lyons spoke about Hubert Humphreys’ idea (of what would be called the Peace Corps, then unnamed as something similar to the American Friends Service Committee program abroad). The then Senator John Kennedy replied in his best almost happy/ smart manner that it was a good idea (saying good ideas from another candidate were GOOD ideas) and that “When I am president, I will start such a program” (or words pretty close to that, and ending with his handsome head cocked to the side and smiling — you know like the cat that ate the cream). I was 23 then and it thrilled me, not just the idea for beginning such an organization but as much for the joyful intelligence and daring-do in a politician. As a Peace Corps Volunteer heading later that very day on a prop, 2 engine airplane to Ghana in late August 1961 in the White House, I met PRESIDENT Kennedy both in the Rose Garden and in the Oval Office along with the other volunteers from early Peace Corps groups –Columbia, Tanganyika, Ghana. There were 50 of us in Ghana One.
© Edward Mycue 27 March 2016