Miscellany

This Sunday, March 18, 2013, Rowland Scherman (PC/HQ 1961-63), the focus of the film Eye on the Sixties, will be featured, with the film’s producer and director Chris Szwedo, at a Forum at the JFK Library that will be shown live on C-Span. An 8-minute clip of “The March” from the film will also be aired. The Forum at the Kennedy Library is from 1-5 on Sunday, August 18, 2013. Check it out!

AUGUST 15, 2013 EGYPT CROSSES THE LINE POSTED BY PETER HESSLER Why now? This is the question most of us ask, looking at Egypt from afar. For nearly a month and a half, ever since the military removed President Mohamed Morsi from office, the authorities allowed his supporters to stage an extended and peaceful sit-in at two sites in Cairo. But early on Wednesday morning police suddenly attacked both sites, destroying camps and forcibly removing demonstrators, and triggering violence across the country. Nearly three hundred people have reportedly been killed, mostly supporters of the Muslim Brotherhood. Among the dead is Asmaa al-Beltagy, the seventeen-year-old daughter of Mohamed al-Beltagy, one of the leaders of the Brotherhood. Mohamed ElBaradei, Egypt’s vice-president for foreign affairs, has resigned in protest. ElBaradei, who won the Nobel Peace Prize in 2005, has been a key source of international legitimacy for the government. For weeks, ElBaradei and foreign . . .

[This story came to me from Sarah Seybold (aka Sally O’Connell (Turkey 1963-65)] An orange hard cover book with Sarge’s picture sits on my mother’s coffee table. It’s been there since 1965. Sargent Shriver: A Candid Portrait by Robert Liston has a bookmark on page 120. That’s the black and white photo section which features Sarge on a raft in North Borneo, Sarge sharing bread in an Iranian bakery, Sarge visiting with the Shah of Iran, and Sarge at my Peace Corps site in a hospital in eastern Turkey. I am dressed in white, with starched cap, pale hose and polished nurse’s shoes. Sarge is tall and athletic looking, with cropped hair and a ruddy face. He wears slacks and a bulky ribbed cardigan frayed around a small hole on the left shoulder. Scuffed boots warm his feet. In the background, temperature charts hang over white metal cribs in a . . .

Travel Smart, a monthly newsletter that Money Magazine calls “Best newsletter for travelers on a budget” has a piece entitled “Yes Virginia, There Is Still A Peace Corps” in their August 15, 2013 issue. Check out the publication, if only because I wrote the piece on ‘today’s Peace Corps’. This small publication, TravelSmart, is jammed with traval information, current facts, and what is happening around the world. In the current issue, besides the Peace Corps article, there is information on the Top Ten Travel Deals, information on the USA’s  Global Entry program, Postcards From Germany, a detail report on Denver (Part II), how to travel to Cuba, legally, riding the rails in Great Britain, plus tips on travel gizmons, gadgets & gear. And a lead story on “Smart Cards’ how in the rest of the world ‘chip and PIN’ technology has become standard, and the US card companies haven’t yet . . .

Mad Man Jules Pagano Jules Pagano was not a Mad Man, though he could have played one on the t.v. show. Yes, he smoked. God, they all smoked! And drank! And partied!  Jules was more of a character actor than a Leading Man at the early Peace Corps and spent his years there as  Chief of the Division of Professional and Technical Affairs. (Yes, Virginia, they did have stupid titles like that even in the ’60s.) Jules had a breezy, laid-back, amusing, and charming persona. He was like great poetry: there was more than one level of meaning to Jules. And like a good union organizer (which he had been) he held his cards close to his chest. If anyone could draw to an inside straight, it was Jules Pagano. I knew Jules best for a short period in the spring of 1965 when he organized the unions segment for . . .

PEACE CORPS UPDATE ON IMPLEMENTATION OF THE KATE PUZEY PEACE CORPS VOLUNTEER PROTECTION ACT Posted on August 1, 2013 by Peace Corps The health, safety and security of Volunteers are Peace Corps’ highest priorities, and they underlie each and every aspect of the agency’s reform efforts over the last few years. Peace Corps has made extraordinary progress in establishing new policies and practices that reflect an absolute commitment to reducing risks for Volunteers and responding effectively and compassionately when crime does occur. There has been nothing short of a broad culture shift at Peace Corps, and the agency’s new approach is Volunteer-centered every step of the way. Peace Corps has worked with leading experts to develop a comprehensive Sexual Assault Risk Reduction and Response program, which includes more than 30 policy changes; extensive sexual assault risk reduction and response training for both volunteers and staff; and new, clearly defined procedures . . .

Being published this coming October is Camelot’s Court: Inside the Kennedy White House by historian Robert Dallek, author of the  previous Kennedy book, An Unfinished Life: John F. Kennedy, 1917-1963 and Nixon and Kissinger, a finalist for the Pulitzer Prize, among other books. This new book offers, according to the press release, “a penetrating look at the inner circle or brain trust that defined the Kennedy administration.” As we know, the Peace Corps in 1960 was Kennedy’s experiment in international development that others called a wacky and dangerous idea. The Daughters of the American Revolution warned of a “yearly drain” of “brains and brawn…for the benefit of backward, underdeveloped countries.” Former President Eisenhower declared it a “juvenile experiment,” and Richard Nixon said it was another form of “draft evasion.” Not everyone among Kennedy’s ‘best and the brightest’ were keen on the Peace Corps idea. Kennedy’s staff had been thinking of . . .

In November 2011, Congress enacted the Kate Puzey Peace Corps Volunteer Protection Act to ensure that volunteers serving abroad can access the care, support, and resources they need to prevent, respond to, or recover from a sexual assault.  Since the passage of the law, First Response Action has closely monitored Peace Corps’ implementation efforts to make sure it is creating a volunteer-centered program as envisioned by the law.  Relying on information provided by the Peace Corps and reports issued by federal agencies, First Response Action presents its first “report card” assessing the agency’s work thus far. First Response Action applauds Peace Corps’ progress in a few key areas.  Indeed, most of the agency’s progress implementing the Act has occurred during Carrie Hessler-Radelet’s tenure as Acting Director since October 2012.  First Response Action also appreciates the agency’s cooperation in providing updates on its implementation efforts.  The reality remains, however, that the . . .

FRA Releases First Report Card Assessing Peace Corps’  Implementation of Kate Puzey Act Report Highlights Gaps, Calls on Peace Corps To Promptly and Fully Implement the Law, and Expresses Concerns With Peace Corps’ Outdated Sexual Assault Definitions and Lack of Robust Whistleblower Program July 31, 2013 FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE Contact: Casey Frazee (513-518-4936); Karestan Koenen (646-765-8992); Madhu Chugh (202-663-6529) WASHINGTON – First Response Action (FRA) released its first report card today assessing the Peace Corps’ progress in implementing the Kate Puzey Peace Corps Volunteer Protection Act, the law passed by Congress in November 2011 to ensure that volunteers serving abroad have access to the care, support, and resources they need to recover from a sexual assault.  Assigning an overall grade of “C,” FRA found major gaps in Peace Corps’ compliance with the law.  According to Peace Corps’ own 2012 Annual Volunteer Survey Results, crimes of sexual assault committed against volunteers . . .

It started as a newsletter in November 1961. It was edited by three women: Betty Harris, Sally Bowles, and ET PCV Margery Michelmore who had famously put the Peace Corps on the front pages of every newspaper in the U.S. with her postcard written from the University College at Ibadan while she was still in training for Nigeria. The Volunteer newsletter quickly became a monthly that went to all PCVs, and as a magazine it was edited by Kellogg Smith for two years. Smith had come to the Peace Corps in September, 1962, after serving with the Democratic National Committee. He was for six years a copy editor with the San Francisco News-Call Bulletin, and before that spent seven years on the desk of the Cleveland Press. He also co-authored two textbooks on English grammar, and was a graduate of Williams College. At the Peace Corps, in December of ’64 . . .

The staff orientation instruction booklet for Charlotte Amalie, Virgin Islands, back in 1968 when the Peace Corps Training was done on St. Croix and St. Thomas, has an interesting piece of instruction for incoming training staff. One paragraph in the 9-page orientation pamphlet, which is mimeographed and stapled together, reads: LIVING ACCOMMODATIONS AT THE VITC The living accommodations at the VITC are not luxurious by any standards. Housing for married couples is not available unless specifically stated in writing by the Director of the VITC. Housing for single staff members is generally shared quarters. A single room provided with two beds, two chairs, one dresser, one standing wardrobe rack. Linen is distributed once weekly. Toilet and shower facilities are located in a separate building. There is no hot water at the St. Croix Camp and no flush toilets. The St. Thomas Camp is equipped with flush toilets, and in some . . .

[A couple weeks ago I posted what Jon Ebeling (Ethiopia 1962-64) had to say about Shriver visiting his town of Debra Marcus, and then seeing Shriver a few years later at the State Department in Washington. Here’s Shriver again talking about that visit to Debra Marcus, and quoting from a letter written by another PCV in that town, Dick Lipez (Ethiopia 1962-64). Sargent Shriver gave the one hundred Sixty-fifth Commencement of Georgetown University in early June of 1964. He talked, of course, about the Peace Corps, telling the graduates and their families that he had been at Chulalongkorn University in Thailand and was awarded an honorary degree to honor the Peace Corps and the 265 Volunteers serving in Thailand. Three of those Volunteers, he said, graduated from Georgetown. Then he went onto talk about eight Volunteers who had trained at Georgetown for the Peace Corps in the summer of ’62.] . . .

“Eye on the Sixties: The Iconic Photography of Rowland Scherman” Guests: Rowland Scherman and Edith Lee Payne Date: Sunday, August 25, 2013 at 2:30 PM Location: Documentary Theater, Washington, D.C. Newseum Note: A Q&A with Scherman and Payne will follow the program. The Newseum presents a special screening of the new documentary “Eye on the Sixties: The Iconic Photography of Rowland Scherman.” The film is an intimate portrait of Scherman and documents his work during the 1960s, one of the country’s most transformational eras. Among his many assignments, Scherman was the primary photographer of the 1963 March on Washington, which he shot for the United States Information Agency. The Newseum screening takes place just three days before the 50th anniversary of the march. One of Scherman’s most iconic photographs from the march is of 11-year-old Edith Lee Payne. Payne will be part of a panel discussion following the film to . . .

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WASHINGTON – President Barack Obama has nominated the deputy director of the Peace Corps to be the agency’s director. The White House on Thursday announced the nomination of Carolyn Hessler Radelet to the top Peace Corps post. She was a Peace Corps volunteer in Western Samoa in the early 1980s and held various positions with a public health management firm, John Snow Inc., before becoming the agency’s deputy director in 2010.