Miscellany

On April 22, 1961, Shriver and his band of brothers began their twenty-six-day venture in personal diplomacy that took them to Ghana, Nigeria, Pakistan, India, Burma, Malaysia, Thailand, and the Philippines. It was not easy going.   When Shriver and the Senior Staff reached Accra, Ghana, their first stop in their round-the-world trip, he was sick. He had never been sick in his adult life, and now he had laryngitis and could bearly speak. That turned out to be a blessing. As everyone liked to say, the purpose of the Peace Corps was to listen and learn. Wofford  would write in his book  Of Kennedy & Kings,  Shriver’s laryngitis was providential. Ghana’s president, Nkrumah, was also known as Osagyefo, meaning “Savior.”  He could only be effectively addressed by the respectful attitude of listening. In Ghana, Kwama Nkrumah, then the leading spokesman for African nationalism, was concerned  about the Peace Corps being guises for CIA infiltration of his . . .

Warren Wiggins would tell me in an interview I did with him in January 1997  that the greatest weakness of the original idea of the Peace Corps was that it didn’t have a constituency beyond “the youth of America.” The Peace Corps, Warren said, “was not an outgrowth of development experience. It didn’t have a constituency in the Congress, the press, or other leadership institutions in the U.S. nor did it have a constituency abroad.” This proved to be an immediate and immense problem. Kennedy had created a Peace Corps and no one wanted it! There were 25,000 potential PCVs waiting to go do something for America, but no Third World country asked for them. Getting requests for PCVs was a major problem. “Shriver almost terminated me in those early months,” Warren recalled in his interview. “He would never admit that, and I am not sure if it was conscious. Hell, . . .

There is an article in the New York Times this morning (Tuesday, March 9) about a new book, Letters to Jackie: Condolences From a Grieving Nation edited by the historian and professor at the University of New Hampshire, Ellen Fitzpatrick. One of the letters was written by Ann Lounsbery, who in1963 was an Ethiopia I PCV serving in the town of Mekelle. She had written home to her mother after Kennedy’s assassination, and her mother had sent her letter, and one of her own, to Mrs. Kennedy. In Ann’s letter, (now Ann Lounsbery Owens), she wrote  “I feel now as if a member of my family had died. In a very real sense he was our idol; he is the reason for us being here–his idealism, his courage.” Ann did not know her mother had sent her letter to  Jackie Kennedy until she was contacted by Fitzpartrick. “It brought tears to my eyes to hear my mom’s words,” she said in  the Times . . .

The signs that the special role for the Peace Corps in foreign aid was in trouble were all over Washington in March and April of ’61. Wofford ran into Ralph Dungan in the White House mess (Wofford was then a Special Assistant to the President on Civil Rights) and Dungan told him the Peace Corps would be a subdivision of the new AID. “Not if Sarge has anything to say about it,” Wofford tossed off, half joking, but also firmly believing Shriver walked on water. The truth was that all these “new guys” Shriver brought in to work for the Peace Corps believed Sarge could get anything he wanted from the White House. But Shriver was scheduled to leave D.C. and the U.S. Who would carry the fight that was developing in D.C.? Before leaving for his ’round the world trip to secure placements for PCVs, Shriver lobbied Sorensen, Dungan, and . . .

[This article by Larry  Leamer appeared yesterday evening on www.newsmax; it is reprinted with Larry’s permission]  “This will be a cause of my presidency,” candidate Barack Obama said in a December 2007 speech about the Peace Corps at Cornell College in Iowa. “JFK made their service a bridge to the developing world. The Americans are not the problem, they are the answer.” In the following months, Obama wrapped the mantle of the Peace Corps around his campaign, reiterating his vow that, as president, he would double the number of Peace Corps volunteers. Born in the 1960s, the Peace Corps was one of the most important parts of President Kennedy’s vision of Camelot and the New Frontier. It was created at the height of the Cold War, and Kennedy envisioned an army of American volunteers helping people in other countries and promoting liberty and democracy abroad. At its height in 1966, there were 15,000 . . .

At the time of Shriver’s February 22, 1961 memorandum to President Kennedy–stating that the Peace Corps should be established as a semi-autonomous agency–there was a lot of professional resistance to the whole idea of sending young Americans overseas to do good. Career diplomat like Elliot O. Briggs described the Peace Corps’ team cry as “Yoo-hoo, yoo-hoo. Let’s go out and wreak some good on the natives,” as Wofford reports in his book, Of Kennedys & Kings. Throughout the State Department diplomats were indifferent to hostile to the whole idea of a Peace Corps. But not Dean Rusk, Kennedy’s new Secretary of State.   He told Shriver that he thought the Peace Corps idea was “first-class.” (Rusk’s sister, during my time in Ethiopia, would serve as an APCD in the Empire.) Henry Labouisse, was appointed in 1961 head of ICA (International Cooperation Administration, Eisenhower’s foreign aid agency that had a policy . . .

What strikes anyone reading about the creating of the Peace Corps are two points: 1) how creatively it was organized; 2) how fast it was put into operation. The reason was that the ‘founding fathers’ (and they were only fathers) took chances. Wofford remarks in Of Kennedys & Kings how a management consultant said to him one evening, “You guys had a good day today. You broke fourteen laws.” Then the consultant promised to straighten out the paper work and urged then all on, saying, “Keep it up, we’re making progress.” Wiggins in his interview with me listed 7 reasons why the Peace Corps was so successful in those early days of the Kennedy administration. 1)  They kept the idea of a “Peace Corps” simple. At first, the PCVs were only to teach English. As Wiggins told me, “Our cardinal rule in crafting ‘A Towering Task’ was to make the agency . . .

It begins this way: In the summer of 1966 a group of 65 Peace Corps Volunteers head for Africa and the heat-scorched desert of Niger. They stay for two years working in agriculture, digging wells and starting health clinics for women and their babies. In 2008 five of these RPCVs return to Niger to revisit the country, see our old friends and witness how their work has improved the lives of the people there. When they return to their host country, they also do a documentary film. You can see a short ten minute trailer of this film (now being finished as a full-length feature) at www.niger66.com. It is a wonderful treat. The film was produced and directed by Judy Irola (Niger 1966-68) who is an award winning cinematographer and a Full Professor at the University of Southern California. She also holds the Conrad Hall Chair in Cinematography (endowed by George Lucas . . .

[Here is a glowing review of Jack Niedenthal’s (Marshall Island 1981-84 ) new film Yokwe Bartowe. The review appears in Film Threat.com.]  “Are you having problems locating a genuinely original, intriguing and entertaining independent film?  Then set your sights on the Marshall Islands.  Yes, that far-flung corner of the Pacific Rim is home to one of the most remarkable little films to fly in under the proverbial radar Yokwe Bartowe, a no-budget/high-imagination fantasy that can sincerely lay claim to being among the most original cinematic endeavors to emerge in quite some time. “Yokwe Bartowe involves the interconnected fates of two siblings: the 20-year-old college student Bartowe and his kid sister Lijiamao.  One fine afternoon, Lijiamao disappears while swimming in a lagoon.  It is assumed that she drowned, even though her body is never recovered, and Bartowe – who was supposed to be watching her – is blamed for her death by their parents.  Poor . . .

On Monday, I sent around Rowland Scherman’s recollections of his first days with the Peace Corps as the agency’s first photographer. Missing was the famous photo he took at a Congressional Hearing of Shriver and young Bill Moyers. At the time, I believe, Moyers was 26 or 27. Here’s the photo and part of Rowland’s comments: So I showed up the next day [at the Peace Corps] and hung around. The press and the photographers had all disappeared, of course, as there was nothing to photograph or write about as the Peace Corps didn’t really yet exist: there was Shriver and some tables and chairs, and that was it. As luck would have it, the next day her Royal Highness, Princess Beatrix of the Netherlands showed up unexpectedly and requested to have her photograph made with Sarge. The Office of Public Information was frantic.  There were no photographers anywhere!  “Where’s that kid with the camera?” . . .

You got to love this. The International Mondays seminar series–sponsored by The University of Iowa International Programs and the Iowa City Public Library–is having this coming Monday, March 1, i.e, Peace Corps Day! A  forum on the Peace Corps that will feature RPCVs. It’s called : Life is Calling: Examining the Peace Corps after 49 Years And at noon, for an hour. They are meeting in Room A, but the  best is that the contact desk is the “Fiction Desk!” The forum is open to the public.Call  Carly Andrews for details. Her email is:  carly-andrews@uiowa.edu  The panelists, all Returned Peace Corps Volunteers, will discuss their specific experiences in the Peace Corps as well as examine the history and politics of the institution and its work around the globe. Panelists: Carly Andrews, facilitator, International Programs Outreach Coordinator Fran Boyken, moderator, RPCV Philippines and UI Peace Corps Campus Representative Rebecca Arnold, RPCV Madagascar . . .

Gary L. Garrison (Tunisia 1966-69) the Assistant Director, Asia, of the Institute of International Education dropped me a note to let me know of “opportunities for international teaching and research available in the Fulbright Scholar Program during the 2011-12 academic year.  Open to writers, college and university faculty and independent professionals, the program seeks qualified candidates to teach in higher education institutions in countries worldwide. We value the experience and expertise of former Peace Corps Volunteers who wish to participate in another great international program, the Fulbright Program.  Writers have held teaching or research awards in recent years in places such as India, Korea, Philippines, Lesotho, Egypt, Israel, Jordan, Romania, Russia, Hungary, Brazil, Colombia and many others.  I hope your Peace Corps writers (and teachers) will consider joining them as Fulbright Scholars.” You can check by countries at http://catalog.cies.org/index.aspx. The Fulbright Scholar Program and Fulbright Humphrey Fellowship Program are administered by . . .

According to a front page article in The New York Times this morning there is a new mini-series about John F. Kennedy’s presidency being written for the History channel, and while there is no cast or footage yet, those who know anything about JFK want the script stopped.  The reason being, they say, the “Kennedys” screenplays contain many factual errors, some benign, some outrageous.” For example, one mistake that hits close to home to all of us is that the script has President Kennedy introducing the Peace Corps during the Bay of Pigs crisis in April 1961, when in fact JFK signed an executive order creating the agency one month earlier. The mini-series, called “The Kennedys,” is being produced by  Joel Surnow, a political conservative. Kennedy scholars say the script offers a portrait of the president and his  family that is, at best, inaccurate, and at worst, a hatchet job. Mr. Kronish, the script writer, says that some factual details, like . . .

Within the RPCV crowd from those early days there is a lot of joshing about who was first in Training, first in-country, first on the job. Mostly the discussion (argument?) goes on with RPCV from Ghana, Tanganyika, Colombia, and the Philippines. (The rest of us couldn’t care less.) But for the record: Colombia I started Training on 6/25/61 (48 Trainees) Tanganyika on 6/25/61 (35 Trainees) Ghana on 7/2/61 (51 Trainees) Nigeria I on 7/24/61 (39 Trainees) Nigeria II on 9/18/61 (24 Trainees) Nigeria III on 9/20/61 (45 Trainees) Sierra Leone on 11/7/61 (32 Trainees) Philippines I on 7/13/61 (272 Trainees in 4 Training Projects) Philippines II on 8/25/61 Philippines III on 12/7/61 Philippines IV on 3/29/62 Thailand on 10/9/61 (45 Trainees) Chile on 7/20/61 (45 Trainees) St. Lucia on 8/1/61 (15 Trainees) India on 10/1/61 (26 Trainees) Pakistan-West 9/15/61 (28 Trainees) Pakisten-East 8/30/61 (29 Trainees) Malaya I 10/16/61 (67 Trainees) We also know that . . .

Shriver, it turns out, (at least according to Warren Wiggins) was not an easy man to work for. “I’m not the first to say that and I found that in the early days it was close to impossible working for Sarge,” Warren told me in our 1997 interview. “I failed to build a good relationship with him in that first period. It was so bad that I went to Jack Bell, who worked for C. Douglas Dillon (the number two man in the State Department), and asked Bell to get me out of the Peace Corps. I couldn’t take it. Bell won’t let me quit. He told me the Peace Corps was too important. Then I went to lunch with Franklin Williams. I didn’t know him very well, but I liked him. I told him the story, how Shriver won’t see me. He won’t pay any attention to me. And Franklin . . .