Bill Josephson Remembers | Early Peace Corps Staff — Ann Oppenheimer Hamilton

by Bill Josephson, Peace Corps General Counsel 1961-66

Ann Oppenheimer Hamilton (HQ Staff 1961-64)

Ann Oppenheimer Hamilton, a very important Peace Corps staff person (1961-64), died in Washington on November 28, aged 85.  She was the subject of a lengthy paid obit in the 12/5/22  Washington Post

I first met Ann when she was studying for her masters in economics at the London School, and I was studying politics at St. Antony’s College, Oxford.  She was a cousin of my St. Antony’s colleague, Richard H. Ullman.  He had a distinguished career at the Woodrow Wilson School and on the State Department’s Policy Planning Staff.

Ann came to see me at the Peace Corps in Washington, and Warren W. Wiggins and John Alexander hired her to join John’s program planning and program review staff in Program Development and Operations.

Ann walked into my office while I was preparing the Peace Corps’s first full-fledged congressional presentation.  She handed me a letter that began, “Hello Everybody.”  It was from Tom Scanlon, a Notre Dame alum, Chile I volunteer stationed in the Far South of Chile.  I put Tom’s letter on the cover of the congressional presentation.

Ann went on to a distinguished career at the War on Poverty, the Budget Bureau and The World Bank.

She was known for her brilliance and her irreverent wit.