Author - John Coyne

At the Ann Arbor City Council meeting on October  4, 2010, the council agreed to close – State Street, from South University to East William – in connection with the 50th anniversary celebration of the founding of the Peace Corps. There will be two events on October 14, 2010, one of them in the early morning, to mark the exact anniversary of the 2 a.m. speech by John F. Kennedy from the steps of the Michigan Union. The later event, at 11 a.m. will include as guest speakers  Sen. Harris Wofford, Jack Hood Vaughn, Aaron Williams, Julia Darlow, Mary Sue Coleman and Jennifer Granholm. The council voted unanimously to approve the street closing.

That summer in Washington changed my life. It changed all our lives in one way or the other, but in most respects it was a peaceful few months. We were back on a college campus; we were living a simple routine of early morning exercises, breakfast, classes, lectures, and beers in a bar late at night. We had some money in our pockets, and we had little responsibility. It was a lovely time, and those of us who might worry, worried about being de-selected, not that we knew much about that process. We all thought we were going to Africa once this silly Training thing was over. For the most part it was vacation time. Only after two years in Addis Ababa, coming back and working for the agency, and going to Training sessions for new Volunteers to Ethiopia, did I find Training useful. Now, I knew, something about the Empire, and how to put into . . .

The NBC video featuring the 37 new PCVs in Sierra Leone was finally telecast on the NIGHTLY NEWS last evening. It was extremely well done and included references to the first group that arrived back in the early ’60s and had interviews with a few of the volunteers who were shown in their assigned locations. Below is the web link sent by Jim Sheahan (Sierra Leone 1961-63) http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/39151931/ns/nightly_news-making_a_difference/

On those hot and humid evenings in Georgetown during Training when there wasn’t an evening lecture at the Hall of Nation, we would walk down the hill to the college bars on K Street and sit around telling lies about our lives back home, or we would walk along the shady cobblestone streets of the old section of Washington, with its clapboard small houses, and stone mansions built close to the sidewalk and find a party going on. There were always parties going on, kids working for the government, young bureaucrats. We weren’t like them. We were living on the edge, or so we fantasized that about ourselves; we weren’t finding safe jobs at home  nor settling down with careers. And on those hot summer evenings guys and gals would be standing outside their group houses with bottles of beer in hand, smoking cigarettes, catching a bit of breeze. Walking by, we’d paused and say hello, or step through an open gate, . . .

WOFFORD HAD COME TO THE NEW ADMINISTRATION as JFK’s Special Advisor on Civil Rights, but there were rumors he was pushing so hard on African-American issues that Kennedy wanted him out of the White House. There were also rumors Harris could have any ambassadorship he wanted in Africa, but Wofford wasn’t interested in a diplomatic role. My guess was that Harris was looking for an assignment that was a  zinger. At that moment in Peace Corps History, Ethiopia was the zinger. This Empire post with the largest project of the agency. So in 1962 Wofford became the first CD to Ethiopia, and was named by Shriver to be the Peace Corps Representative to Africa. In 1962 Harris and his wife Clare had three young children. It was not an easy move in the early Sixties to move a family, especially to a new continent. Thinking back, fifty years ago, we as a nation knew very little about Africa. . . .

Looking forward to this year’s 50th anniversary of the Peace Corps, the University of Michigan is planning many events, including a national symposium on the future of international service and a commemoration of Senator John F. Kennedy’s speech on the steps of the Union. All of these events were organized by the University and not the Peace Corps or the National Peace Corps Association. The events that have been planned to date include: October 1-November 30 U-M and the Peace Corps: It All Started Here Hatcher Graduate Library, Library Gallery (Room 100) This dynamic exhibit showcases the unique role of University of Michigan students and faculty in the creation and popularizing of the Peace Corps. As Sargent Shriver said, “It might still be just an idea but for…those Michigan students and faculty.” The exhibit highlights the development of student activism as well as important historical events. Sponsored by the University of Michigan Library and . . .

One of the Peace Corps’ Mad Men who did not have a ‘real’ job at 806 Connecticut Avenue was Harris Wofford. Wofford, who was at the birth of the agency in the two-room suite in the Mayflower Hotel, was in 1961 32 or 34, and was one of the Best and the Brightest who had come to Washington with the Kennedy Administration. Wofford had been a white-shoe firm lawyer in D.C., an early civil rights advocate, and had become friends with Sarge Shriver early in Kennedy’s run for the White House when Shriver sought out Harris at Notre Dame, where Wofford was teaching law. Their first meeting was at a Notre Dame football game, where they talked civil right and politics while watching ND play. During the presidential campaign it was Wofford’s idea to suggest to Kennedy that he make the famous phone call to Martin Luther King’s wife after . . .

[A friend who I served with in Ethiopia (1962-64) sent me this article from the January 3, 1963, The Machinists, a newspaper published by the International Association of Machinists. It is the way that the Peace Corps did recruitment in those early days. Here was an announcement looking for Diesel Mechanics. The  contact person at the Peace Corps was Jules Pagano. A few months ago I wrote about Jules as one of the original Mad Men at the agency. Here’s the newspaper ad:] Peace Corps Needs Diesel Mechanics The Peace Corps is looking for 30 gasoline or diesel engine mechanics to volunteer for a special repairing and maintenance project in Tunisia. JULES PAGANO of the Peace Corps public affairs office announced recently that volunteers will be assigned to repair shops to maintain trucks, buses, and auto engines and to help train Tunisian mechanics. The operation is part of a Tunisian Peace Corps . . .

This coming November Rutgers University will honor the PCVs who trained at Rutgers and went to  Colombia with the first group of Volunteers. The Rutgers College Avenue Campus will host a program of guest speakers on November 4, beginning at 7:00 p.m. The next day, a commemorative plaque will be unveiled  at 11:00 a.m. at Hegeman Hall in New Brunswick. Thirty-five of the 62 (men only) Colombia One RPCV are planning to attend the cerebration. Recently the Rutgers Magazine, interviewed Harry Kranz, a 1945 graduate of the College, who was instrumental in getting the Peace Corps Training Program to Rutgers, about his involvement and those early Volunteers. Kranz was with Shriver on June 25, 1961, when Shriver came to Rutgers to see what “real PCV Trainees” looked like. Kranz, who had been an assistant to Walter Reuther, head of the United Auto Workers Union, had contacted Harris Wofford about going to work . . .