Miscellany

I received an email today that I’d like to share with you. Dave Berlew, the Peace Corps CD in Ethiopia (1965-68), was in his professional life a PhD from Harvard in behavioral science and a management consultant in his career. He wrote to say what he thought of my Step #9 for the Peace Corps. Take a look. John, your list qualities for CD (Country Director) candidates, while on the one hand humorous, is also pretty close to the mark if you look at it as a Gestalt rather than item by item.  But there are more systematic ways of approaching the CD assessment problem.  In late 1964 I traveled to Washington to interview with Shriver for the Director of Selection position.  When I got there he told me had filled the position the day before with the head selection guy at Exxon Corporation.  When he offered me the job as Deputy Director of . . .

Leahy at Peace Corps Crossroad is a “My Turn’ column in the Burlington Free Press written by Scott Skinner (Nepal 1964-66). Scott writes: “Sen. Patrick Leahy has frequently provided courageous leadership in the Senate. But he is now faced with a major challenge, and it is not clear that he is going to step up to meet it. “Sen. Leahy is the chairman of a key Senate Appropriations Committee subcommittee that funds the Peace Corps. On Thursday, this subcommittee is scheduled to meet to allocate approximately $49 billion for a large variety of foreign projects. Funding for the Peace Corps is a tiny part of this sum. As chairman, Sen. Leahy can basically decide himself how much funding goes to the Peace Corps. “The Obama administration had proposed a Peace Corps budget of $373 million, an amount that would effectively reduce the number of the Peace Corps volunteers despite the president’s . . .

More than 6,000 U.S. Peace Corps Volunteers have served Hondurans since 1963 in every facet of development, in every state of that nation. This uninterrupted service bridged seventeen years of military rule, the Soccer War (1969), two serious hurricanes (1974, 1998), and sporadic flooding exacerbated by deforestation. Since 1981, Honduras has participated in civilian rule. On June 28th, the president elect, his family, and foreign minister were forced at gun point to leave. Below is an electronic message from Joe Arcoleo (Honduras 1977-80) who reports from that country. I was in Tegucigalpa while attending a funeral of a family member and travelled outside of the capital area during the events June 25 through 30 of this year.  I audited an organizing committee meeting that a group of ordinary citizens held during my visit.  These citizens considered the Honduran military’s actions to remove the President illegal.  They brave men and women . . .

The vote is this week on the Senate Appropriations Subcommittee on State/Foreign Operations. We really have one more day to call. Senator Leahy is the key person.  If you are from his state call 802.863.2525 and tell him you vote! Otherwise, call the Washington, D.C. number (and tell them you are moving to Leahy’s hometown) and that you vote.  Tell the Senator’s office to vote to increase the Peace Corps budget; tell the person who answers the phone that America needs a bold Peace Corps world wide. Thank you. p.s. If you have called, call again. It won’t hurt!

Here’s a thought….what if the President, in a show of bipartisanship, picks Sarah Palin as our next Peace Corps Director? Obama has a habit of taking ‘potential’ Republican candidates and liberal Republicans into his Administration. [Well, she is not liberal, but she has potential to run against him]. Also, she is versed in international affairs…not only can she see Russia from her  home, she recently got her first passport. Sarah has about as much experience as some past Directors….Nick Craw (1973-74) raced sports cars and had a trust fund; Loret Ruppe (1981-89) had been to Europe (after college) before she was appointed, but she had never been a Governor; Dick Celeste (1979-81) was a Governor and an Ambassador, but only after he was Peace Corps Director; he was, however, a Rhodes Scholar; Coverdell (1989-91) was a state senator; Gearan(1995-990) had a passport (I think) and did work on the Hill; Elane Chao (1991-92) was born in Taiwan, but hadn’t done anything internatonal until she took over the Peace Corps; Gaddi Vasquez (2002-06)was . . .

Senator Patrick Leahy has done much to advance American democracy. When it comes to issues of civil liberties or governmental abuse, he has been there standing stalwart and often alone. That is something that all 195,000 returned Peace Corps volunteers and all Americans concerned with their country’s role in the world must remember, as in the next few days, with the Senate Mark-Up scheduled for Thursday, July 9th, the Senator will have the power to give birth to a bold new Peace Corps or possibly to destroy that dream forever. As Chairman of the State Foreign Operations and Related Programs subcommittee , Senator Leahy has enormous power, and usually what he says goes. Thursday, he can vote for the robust funding of $450 million that will send young Americans out to the most remote archipelagos of Indonesia, carrying a message that Americans are the children of freedom, not of empire. . . .

Step # 9 Toughest Job You’ll Ever Have! Since 1988 Country Directors have not been political positions, but during the Gaddi Vasquez and Jody Olsen tenures, they let non-merit Republicans grab these GS-1 and GS-2 $100,000 plus positions that are the key appointments in the Peace Corps.  True, hiring these mostly unqualified appointments as CDs was not Jody’s fault.  Jody will be the first to admit that as the Deputy,  she had no real authority in the agency; she was nothing more than a totem female RPCV doing the bidding of other Republican hacks. The real power within the Peace Corps was Lloyd Pierson who was a CD in Kenya. His wife worked in the Republican White House and Pierson believed that the Peace Corps should be under USAID. He told Gaddi and his good friend, Jody Olsen, what to do. That said, as the recent Transition Team report states, “Country director selection must be . . .

Dan Curry (Thailand 1969-73) who is a seven-time Emmy Award winner for his visionary work on the various STAR TREK television series: ENTERPRISE; DEEP SPACE NINE; VOYAGER; and THE NEXT GENERATION started out in the Peace Corps building small dams and bridges in rural Northeast Thailand. Wait! Is Tom Hanks’ Volunteer really based on Dan’s Peace Corps tour? Dan, who is from New York City, majored in Fine Arts at Middlebury College, then joined the Peace Corps and stayed on in Thailand after his tour to work freelance in art and film production. It was during these years that he was awarded a commission from the King of Thailand as production designer for the Royal Ball. Coming home, he worked next as a bio-medical illustrator, taught fine arts at a New England college, and got his Master of Fine Arts degree in Film and Theatre at Humboldt State University. Then . . .

Step #8 A GI Bill for RPCVs The President’s Transition Team highlighted the fact that the Peace Corps never has fulfilled the promise of the Third Goal. This problem lies within the Peace Corps. The Peace Corps looks overseas. It doesn’t have the mind set to understand, as the Transition Team reported, “the power of returned Volunteer cultural and linguistic skills in the new multi-cultural America; show that Peace Corps service abroad helps solve problems here at home-completing the loop for Peace Corps; and create a re-employment stream for returned Volunteers. Taxpayers will see an impact at home (as teachers, public health workers and more). Over time, this grows into more support, first for overseas mission, and then for the domestic goal.” So what does the Director have to get the White House and Congress to do? 1.) Raise the Readjustment Allowance for RPCVs from $6,000 to $10,000. It has been at . . .

Step # 7: Curtailing APCDs I remember a period of time–perhaps six months–in 1965 when there were 450 PCVs in Ethiopia working mostly teachers, nurses and highway surveyors and there were a total of 4 APCDs. Like all bureaucracies overseas staffs have grown and grown in 50 years. It is the nature of the beast. Now is the time to try it a new way. A couple true stories. A good friend would worked in HQ in the early days, then much later as a CD in Africa, said that what was needed as a CD was someone with  counseling skills, not management or development experience, and that she spent much of her days talk with emotionally distraught PCVs. It is not for naught that psychological payments are so high in the agency when the PCVs come home again. Working as an APCD in Ethiopia, I had under my supervision a . . .

When a conservative and right-winger like Senator Bond of Missouri states that the Peace Corps is “Smart Power” and “one of the best examples of our nation’s smart power,” and then go onto say “Peace Corps Volunteers have fostered lasting, positive relationships between the United States and nations across the globe through grassroots efforts” we have to start asking, “What’s in the water on Capital Hill? Here a statement by Sen Kit Bond that I picked up off Newsmax.com at 8:06 PM this Monday evening, June 29. (Maybe the More or Bold Peace Corps campaign is really working.) By: Sen. Kit Bond In less-developed nations around the world too many people are suffering from governments that don’t work; too little food to feed their families; lack of clean water and other basic necessities like shelter and clothes; and little hope for a better life. These people, whether they live in Africa, Southeast . . .

50 + PCVs Within the last years of his tour as Peace Corps Director, Ron T­­schetter   launched an effort to target and recruit older Volunteers. This sort of effort has a history within the agency. It has been tried by various directors in years past, going back to Shriver. Ron, by the way, served with “senior cititzen” Lillian Carter, the president’s mother, back in 1968. Recruiting older PCVs is a worthy effort. When I was the Regional Manager of the New York Recruitment Office, Recruiters actively sought out older applicants who proved to be outstanding Volunteers, some returning home to sign up for a second and third tour. It is not an unwise decision to retire at 55 from a school system in the US, stash the social security checks and TIAA/CREF monies, and let the government pay for two years of travel, adventure, and doing good in the world as a . . .

A local Wisconsin paper columnist Amy L. Geiger-Hemmer writes this weekend that RPCV Jim Doyle (Tunisia 1967-69) is President Obama’s pick to be the Peace Corps Director. Amy spins it this way: “Our ethically-challenged Governor, Jim Doyle, is eagerly awaiting the opportunity to sign off on the Wisconsin state budget.  This is a budget that includes huge increases in taxes and fees.  Huge increases in spending – unprecedented during times of high unemployment and a recession.  And when all is said and done, Wisconsin will still be over $2,600,000,000.00 in debt.” The rumor in Wisconsin is that Doyle is on his way out, headed for D.C. as the new head of the agency. At the moment Doyle’s approval ratings are in the low 30’s,  and he has little chance, according to Amy Geiger-Hemmer,  of winning another term against Republicans Scott Walker or Mark Neumann in 2010. ” We’ll see. Remember, Republicans have been wrong before. At least we know that this governor won’t be headed to Argentina!

 Mr. President: I rise today to introduce the Peace Corps Improvement and Expansion Act of 2009. For 48 years, the Peace Corps has stood as a uniquely American institution.  What other great nation would send its youth abroad, not to extend its power, not to intimidate its adversaries, not to kill and be killed, but to build, to dig, to teach, to empower – and to ask nothing in return? And for 48 years, those young men and women – hundreds of thousands of them, myself included – have returned stronger, wiser, and inspired – prepared to live uniquely American lives of service and accomplishment. For half a century, the Peace Corps has shaped not just these American lives, but the identity of all Americans: who we are as a people, and what we hope to achieve in the world. Today, I rise to offer this legislation for one simple . . .