The Peace Corps

Carol Bellamy was nominated to be Peace Corps Director by Bill Clinton. The Senate confirmed her for the position on October 7, 1993. Leaving Bears Steams, where she was managing director, she was Peace Corps Director until May 1, 1995. President Clinton then nominated her to be head of UNICEF. One of Carol’s many claims to fame is that she is the first RPCV (Guatemala 1963-65) to be Director of the agency. How she got the appointing is an interesting and typical Washington story of how people get jobs in D.C. Maureen Orth (Columbia 1964-66) attending a Georgetown party shortly after Clinton was elected mentioned to the president-elect that the Peace Corps never had an RPCV director. Maureen told me, “Clinton’s eyes widened, hearing that news.” It was clear he understood he could be the one to nominate a ‘first” for the job.   Clinton also would nominate Chuck Baquet (Somalia 1965-67) . . .

The first class of MFA Creative Writing for PCVs and RPCVs at National University begins on April 10, 2017. This total online graduate degree program will begin with a seminar in Creative Nonfiction. Students write and critique each others’ original work in an online workshop-style format. Through presentation and critique of published and student-generated work, students will advance their understanding of the genre’s many forms, including memoir, autobiography, nature writing, literary journalism, and the personal essay. The course is being taught by novelist and nonfiction writer John Coyne (Ethiopia 1962-64). If interested in enrolling in this special MFA program, contact John Coyne at jcoyneone@gmail.com, or Frank Montesonti, Lead Faculty at National University at fmontesonti@nu.edu.

Sabra Moore (Guinea 1964-66) an artist and activist before, during, and after her Peace Corps years has just published her memoir of twenty-two years in New York working as an artist and freelance photo editor. The book is entitled, Openings: A Memoir from the Women’s Art Movement, New York City 1970-1992. Her book also goes back to her Peace Corps years and her childhood in east Texas. I recently interviewed Sabra about her career, in and out of the Peace Corps, and her current life in Abiquiu, New Mexico. Sabra, what was your background before the Peace Corps?  I grew up in east Texas- my grandparents were farmers, my father organized for the Brotherhood of Locomotive Engineers and was a railroad engineer for the Cotton Belt and my mother was a dedicated first-grade school teacher. I graduated from the University of Texas in Austin with a BA cum laude and studied in the liberal . . .

(Please Note: I, Joanne Roll, made certain sections BOLD.) March 13, 2017 Presidential Executive Order on a Comprehensive Plan for Reorganizing the Executive Branch EXECUTIVE ORDER   COMPREHENSIVE PLAN FOR REORGANIZING THE EXECUTIVE BRANCH By the authority vested in me as President by the Constitution and the laws of the United States of America, it is hereby ordered as follows: Section 1. Purpose. This order is intended to improve the efficiency, effectiveness, and accountability of the executive branch by directing the Director of the Office of Management and Budget (Director) to propose a plan to reorganize governmental functions and eliminate unnecessary agencies (as defined in section 551(1) of title 5, United States Code), components of agencies, and agency programs. Sec. 2. Proposed Plan to Improve the Efficiency, Effectiveness, and Accountability of Federal Agencies, Including, as Appropriate, to Eliminate or Reorganize Unnecessary or Redundant Federal Agencies. (a) Within 180 days of . . .

Los Angeles movie director A.P. Gonzalez will begin shooting a short film, “The Wetback,” as a prelude to an intended feature-length movie based on the celebrated novel, The Road To Tamazunchale, by Ron Arias (Peru, 1963-65). The short comes from the title story of Arias’ recently published collection, The Wetback And Other Stories, which focuses on a largely Latino neighborhood called Frogtown next to the L.A. River. As an example of the timely theme and style of the feature, the short will be entered in festivals and shown to prospective investors and producers to raise interest in the full-length movie project. “The short,” he says, “accurately reflects on the lives of immigrant and working-class Latinos in the U.S. It’s not a story about misery and poverty and other stereotypical notions of American Latinos; it’s about respect, compassion, humor and the magic in our culture. “I have cast the short with an . . .

Openings is a memoir from the women’s art movement in New York City, from 1970 to 1992. It was written by Sabra Moore (Guinea 1964-66). After her Peace Corps tour, Sabra moved to New York City and became involved with the feminist art movement. She was president of the NYC/Women’s Caucus for Art, a key organizer of the 1984 demonstration against MoMA for excluding women and minority artists, a member of the Heresies Collective, an active member of Women Artists in Revolution and Women’s Action Coalition, and a leading organizer/creator of several large-scale women’s exhibitions in New York City, Brazil, Canada, and New Mexico. Her artistic and political involvement was showcased in the feature length film The Heretics (2011). Moore also worked for thirty years in NYC as a freelance photo editor for publishers such as Doubleday, Harper Collins, American Heritage, and Random House. Her most recent major solo show, Out of the Woods, . . .

Elaine Chao was appointed Peace Corps Director by President Bush on October 8, 1991. She resigned on November 13, 1992. I believe her thirteen months as Director is the shortest tour. When I interviewed her in her first months at the Peace Corps, she had already made one tour to Africa and sitting in her office she broke down in tears recalling how the PCVs were living overseas. This was first of many ‘teardowns’ she would have in speaking to RPCV groups. It became a standard joke and RPCVs began to laugh at her when she had her outbursts. Hey, this is the Peace Corps, what did you expect? Later I would learn on her first trip to West Africa and visiting a female volunteer living in a village and seeing how the young woman was dealing with life in the developing world, she burst out, “Does your mother know . . .

One of the famous Mad Men of the Peace Corps in the early years of the Peace Corps was the stoic Doctor Joseph English, a young MD and research fellow at the National Institute of Mental Health (NIMH) in Bethesda, Maryland. In 1961 when Shriver was putting together the Staff for the new agency, he came across a paper written about a student mental health center that English had established at his alma mater, Saint Joseph’s College. Sarge at the time was looking for a psychiatrist to evaluate new PCVs. As Joe recalls in a recent profile in The Chironian, a publication of the New York Medical College, where Dr. English is the Sidney E. Frank Distinguished Professor of Psychiatry and Behavioral Sciences, he was in his office at the NIMH reading an article in the New York Times how JFK’s call for a New Frontier was exciting young people . . .

  Thanks to a ‘heads up’ from Neil Boyer (Ethiopia 1962-64) • Charles Peters on Recapturing the Soul of the Democratic Party In a new book, the Washington Monthly founding editor explains where liberal elites went wrong — and suggests a way forward. by Paul Glastris, editor Washington Monthly March/April/May 2017 •   MOST OF US, as we get older, tell ourselves that we’ll keep working past age sixty-five, or at least use our skills and experience productively in retirement. That’s especially true of writers. But few of us will pull off what Charlie Peters has done. At ninety years old, Peters, my mentor and the founding editor of the Washington Monthly, has just published an important book on the central issue facing the country. We Do Our Part is a history of how American political culture evolved from the communitarian patriotic liberalism of Peters’s New Deal youth to a get-mine conservatism in . . .

To Die On Kilimanjaro By John Coyne I first went to the Blue Marlin Hotel at the edge of the Indian Ocean in the summer of ’63. It was the summer between my two years of teaching at the Commercial School in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia. At the time the Blue Marlin was full of Brits. It was the last days before Kenya’s independence. By the late Sixties the Brits had been replaced by German tourists. Today, I’m told, the village, and most of Kenya, suffers from a lack of tourists because of Al- Shabbaab. This story begins, however, in the early ‘70s when the hotel was full of Germans and where the few English speaking tourists gravitated to one end of the bar. It was there when I had come again to travel through Africa—heading back to Addis Ababa– that I met Phillip and his beautiful wife, April, and their . . .

In the middle of 1989, Loret Ruppe left the Peace Corps to become a U.S. ambassador in Europe and Paul Coverdell was appointed Director on April 20. Once again the head of the agency became a revolving door. All Directors, as we know, have a way of stamping their tour (however brief) with some new project. For Coverdell it was the famous school-to-school program and the establishment of the Fellows/USA which helps RPCVs get into graduate programs. Coverdell would also say that the Peace Corps should be a “vibrant, vital part of the U.S. foreign policy.” This was a radical change for an organization that has embodied the spirit of altruism since its inception. The Peace Corps has always been about helping other people because it was the right thing to do, not because it was politically advantageous or even politically correct. Coverdell, however, is most famous for a front . . .

Why preserve the Peace Corps? Mar 6, 2017 at 12:01 AM By Chris Honoré One of Donald Trump’s first acts as president was to eliminate funding for nongovernmental organizations in poor countries if they offer abortion counseling as a family planning option or if they advocate for the right to seek an abortion in their countries. The freeze applies even if the NGO uses other funds for such services. Republicans have supported this policy since the Reagan administration.   But the reality is that despite how freighted with ideology the above policy is, it’s not a one-off. The Trump administration has submitted a budget that will propose severe cuts to foreign aid programs as part of a 37 percent cut to the State Department and the United States Agency for International Development. As well, Trump has told interviewers that he does not plan on filling hundreds of currently vacant posts in State or at USAID, . . .

On April 27, 1979, President Carter signed an amendment to the ACTION legislation granting the Peace Corps special independence. Dick Celeste was appointed Peace Corps Director and ACTION associate director for International Operations. I’m told Bill Josephson, a New York lawyer, and one of the Mayflower Gang that created the agency in 1961 was involved in writing the amendment. Peace returned to the Peace Corps with the appointment of Loret Miller Ruppe on May 6, 1981. She is, so far, the longest serving Peace Corps Director. In her tenure from 1981 to 1989 the budget increased almost 50%, the number of PCVs by 20%, the average attrition rate decreased significantly and according to Senator Chris Dodd (Dominican Republic 1966-68) she “took the Peace Corps out of the pit of politics and made it non-partisan.” Programs began or were renewed in 14 countries. One of the disturbing pieces of information that . . .

  I Remember When Appalachia Wasn’t Trump Country By CHARLES PETERS MARCH 4, 2017 New York Times Sunday Review • I am a liberal from West Virginia. That didn’t used to be unusual. I remember when the people of the state were liberal, and what liberalism meant for their lives. In 2016 a majority of West Virginia’s voters supported Donald J. Trump, and many expressed outright hatred of Barack Obama. But when I was last active in the state’s politics, in 1960, the state was a leader in desegregating schools in response to the Brown v. Board of Education decision. John F. Kennedy won the state by a wide margin, and I was one of an overwhelming majority of Democrats elected to the state’s House of Delegates — along with a handful of Republicans. Today that tiny minority is the majority. So how did we get from there to here? The . . .

(l to r) Mark O’Donnell (Honduras  ) PCI COO; PCDirector Carrie Hessler-Radelet; Gaddie Vasquez (PCDirector 2002-06) never a PCV, Board of PCI; Bob Sullivan (Ethiopia 1968-70) Board PCI Former Peace Corps Director takes helm of International Development Organization SAN DIEGO—Carrie Hessler-Radelet was selected as the new President & CEO of Project Concern International (PCI) by its Board of Directors on February 3. Hessler-Radelet will lead PCI’s efforts working with families and communities in 16 countries to enhance health, end hunger, and overcome hardship. It was 56-years-ago today that President Kennedy established the Peace Corps and began a legacy of Americans serving abroad. Over the years, the Peace Corps has attracted more than 225,000 motivated changemakers to promote world peace and friendship in 141 countries across the globe. The international development community is full of Returned Peace Corps Volunteers (RPCVs), and that is especially true here at PCI. While we have . . .