The Peace Corps

Thanks to the ‘heads up’ from Dan Campbell (El Salvador 1974-77) How to Reverse the Resentful, Unequal, Uncaring Parts of American Culture—-From the Atlantic Monthly A new book by Charles Peters (PCW/Staff 1961-65) looks to the past to address the problems of the contemporary United States Stories From Another Time, for Our Times: ‘We Dp Our Part’ James Fallows 8:42 AM / April 3, 2017 To the extent I spent any time studying in college, it was to learn about American history. The main impression the lectures and readings left on me was the realization that the country has always had big, serious problems. Slavery, violence, corruption, injustice—things were worst-ever during the Civil War, but if you choose your decade, you can name the corresponding set of failures and crises. As I think back to almost any stage in my own lifetime, I can tick off the emergencies of each . . .

  Dr. Brendan Goff of New College of Florida met Harris Wofford for the first time when Harris was a senator in Washington. It was then that Goff learned of the role Wofford played in the creation of the Peace Corps. Speaking recently at a meeting of the Gulf Coast RPCVs group, he gave his perspective on the creation of the agency. He has kindly agreed to let me republish his presentation to the RPVCs about his studies. Footnotes to this academic article were removed. If interested in Dr. Goff’s writings email him at New College of Florida — bgoff@ncf.edu. • The Peace Corps:  The New Frontier in Action In the fall of 1991, I worked as an intern in the office of Senator Harris Wofford of Pennsylvania. I chose to do my internship with Senator Wofford because of his strong stance on the need for health care reform.  But I was soon . . .

Dan Campbell (El Salvador 1974-77) wrote a letter to his senator– Tim Kaine–asking for support for the Peace Corps in the upcoming budget. I thought we would all like to read it and asked Dan if I might share it with you. Thanks, Dan. • • •  Dear Mr. Campbell: Thank you for contacting me about the Peace Corps.  I appreciate hearing from you. Since 1961, the Peace Corps has challenged nearly 220,000 Americans to serve in over 140 countries and to help people in need.  In the process, Peace Corps volunteers have helped develop hundreds of communities around the world while promoting a better understanding of the American people.  Currently, about 6,800 volunteers, including over 200 Virginians, serve in 64 countries, mostly in Africa, Latin America, Eastern Europe and Central Asia.  I strongly believe that this service helps advance the national interests of the United States. I understand the value of . . .

Chuck Lustig (Colombia, 1967-68) novelist, editor and an Iowa Writers’ Workshop MFA graduate. Some of his instructors at Iowa: John Irving, John Leggett and Gail Godwin. Currently finishing part one of his four-part Peace Corps hero saga entitled Charging the Jaguar (the story of a PCV turned Colombian drug lord), Chuck Lustig is available for: Writer’s coach therapy sessions by telephone or Skype: Tell me your writing challenges; let me listen and only then suggest possible options/solutions; Line-by-line edits of manuscripts; and Editorial critiques of Peace Corps novels and memoirs. Your immediate opportunity: Subscribe to Chuck Lustig’s monthly ExcitingWriting Advisory. Cost: Gratis. (Chuck has been bringing out a new issue of his newsletter every month for the past 15 years. Content also appears as a blog. For a number of years now, Chuck has been reviewing a different book about writing every month. For sample content, visit my blog at . . .

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 . . .