The Peace Corps

  by Behrooz Alexander Moghaddam Hartford Courtant October 26, 2020 My first taste of American greatness was peanut butter. It was in 1965 or so, in Urmia, my hometown in northwest Iran. I was around 3 years old. The peanut butter was a gift from Penny and Richard, two of a handful of Peace Corps volunteers who worked in Urmia in the 1960s. Since President Donald Trump was elected, I have thought a lot about that gift of peanut butter and our president’s slogan, “Make America Great Again.” Had Trump’s policies existed when I was a child, I would not be who or what I am. My immigrant family would have failed our president’s admission test on all possible counts. We were poor, only one of us spoke passable English when we arrived in the U.S., and we were from a Muslim country. Thankfully, in 1969, and at least until . . .

  The RPCVs Advocates who created this movement have named the petition, “Abolish the Peace Corps.”  But, in reading the petition, I note they offer many suggestions to “reform” the Peace Corps, not to abolish it.  In this regard, they may be surprised to realize they join other  RPCVs  from earlier eras, who also wanted to improve the Peace Corps. I think it would be worthwhile to read the petition and its proposed changes, because I think it would generate  discussion.  Here is the link to the petition.  Its content has been copied and follows. Abolish Peace Corps: A Movement Toward Ending Neocolonialism in International Development The Peace Corps prides itself on being fundamentally apolitical and consistently providing humanitarian efforts around the world. This is a facade in that the Peace Corps, like all U.S. government agencies, is subjected to change due to rotations in administration, which can greatly affect . . .

    The Peace Corps is a form of systematic racism, for those it claims to serve and for those who serve. The words, “systematic racism,” seem to be everywhere these days. However, it is crucial that we acknowledge that the words, “systematic racism,” do not refer to a system filled with racists. Instead, these words, refer to a system that would uphold racism and disproportionately harm and subjugate people of certain races even if no racists were present. Those leading the effort to decolonize Peace Corps, @decolonizingpc discussed systematic racism, saying that, “Even after adding more volunteers of color, more anti-racism trainings, more reforms (including the ones [they] have proposed on [their] page), Peace Corps will still be a neocolonialist organization because of the imperialistic goals of U.S. foreign policy. Which brings us to Number 2 — Soft power imperialism, such as providing financial aid or human resources for development, functions best under the pretense . . .

    by James Mayer (Korea 1978-81) The Korea Times Friends of Korea   No one likes to be last. But I had that distinction as the Peace Corps Korea country director, and I am forever grateful that it happened. In early 1981, Peace Corps Headquarters made the difficult decision that the Peace Corps program in Korea had to be closed due to projected budget reductions to its worldwide programs. When the Peace Corps Volunteers (PCVs) were told that their service in Korea would be cut short, I truly didn’t know what to expect. I told them there were two basic choices: they could choose to get angry or go out with heads held high. Frankly, I wouldn’t have blamed them for choosing either option. Nonetheless, I was truly delighted by their response. Some PCVs chose to continue their service in other countries where Peace Corps had programs. Others immediately . . .

  In Memoriam: Former Peace Corps Director Joseph Blatchford by Steven Boyd Saum (Ukraine 1994-96) • The Peace Corps community mourns the loss of Joseph H. Blatchford, third director of the Peace Corps. He took on that role at a time that heralded, he said, a “new world and a different America from 1961” when the Peace Corps was launched. Joseph Blatchford was appointed to lead the Peace Corps by President Richard Nixon in May 1969 — and he headed the agency during turbulent times of Nixon’s first administration. Tapped for the post at 34 years old, he came with nearly a decade’s experience of organizing international volunteers: In 1961, he had launched the organization Accion to send U.S. volunteers to work in Latin America. Some of the initial luster was already off Peace Corps when Blatchford took on the director’s role. That was true in the U.S. — deeply . . .

Thanks for the ‘heads up’ from Barry  Hillenbrand  (Ethiopia 1963-65)   Nina Boe, shown at a wedding, has been living in New York since her work as a Peace Corps volunteer was put on hold and she was ordered to evacuate North Macedonia because of the coronavirus pandemic. • by Carol Morello Washington Post Oct. 15, 2020 NINA BOE’S LIFE is as much in limbo now as it was the day in March when her work as a Peace Corps volunteer was put on hold and she was ordered to evacuate North Macedonia. She has been living in New York ever since, interviewing for jobs that have not materialized. She misses her friends in Skopje, North Macedonia’s capital, who became like family, and cries after they call to keep in touch. But she has been advised it could be mid-2021 before she is recalled, and she does not know if . . .

  October 14, 2020 WASHINGTON – Peace Corps Director Jody K. Olsen announced Volunteers will begin returning to service in January. Speaking to staff today during a town hall meeting launching the agency’s yearlong 60th anniversary celebration, Director Olsen said public health conditions permit the return of Volunteers to the Eastern Caribbean. The agency suspended global operations in March in response to the COVID-19 pandemic. “I am thrilled to share this good news as we commemorate our founding moment, when then candidate John F. Kennedy planted the seed for what would become the Peace Corps during an early morning speech October 14, 1960 at the University of Michigan,” said Director Olsen. “Our decision to return to the field follows months of extensive preparations and review, and I am extremely grateful to the many staff and host country partners who contributed to this effort. I also salute the evacuated volunteers who . . .

    JFK AT THE UNION By James Tobin   Well after midnight on October 14, 1960, presidential candidate John F. Kennedy arrived at the steps of the Michigan Union. Legend has it that he first proposed the idea of the Peace Corps here. The truth is a little more complex, but far more interesting.   Senator John F. Kennedy’s motorcade rolled into Ann Arbor very early on the morning of Friday, October 14, 1960. The election was three and a half weeks away. The Democratic nominee for president and his staff had just flown into Willow Run Airport. A few hours earlier, in New York, Kennedy had fought Vice President Richard Nixon, the Republican nominee, in the third of their four nationally televised debates. The race was extremely close, and Michigan was up for grabs. Kennedy’s schedule called for a few hours of sleep, then a one-day whistle-stop train . . .

  Here is the current list of unofficial Resources describing the history of the Peace Corps.  It is unofficial and incomplete. The public  documents are available but not necessarily easily accessible. Few are  digitalized. Most are the property of the institutional archives, public, private and certainly university. For example, the training documents for Colombia I, the first Peace Corps group to enter training in June of 1961, are archived at Rutgers University.  RPCVs may visit the university and review the materials, a privilege otherwise reserved for students and faculty of the university.   RESOURCES An unofficial guide to the locations of resources describing the Peace Corps, and its history.    This list is a cooperative effort with RPCV Alana deJoseph, producer of the documentary A Towering Task, her team and the many archivists and librarians at the places cited. Thank you to all .   This is the latest information we have. Please . . .

  Between 1961 and 2018, about 230,000 American men and women representing all fifty states served in 140 countries around the world. We all learned a new language before unloading a duffle bag or a trunk, rolled up our sleeves and asked a local in his own native tongue, “How can I help?” Some of us dug latrines and wells. Others fished, built fish farms, planted crops, taught in schools. My group helped to build roads and schools. You might have comforted the sick in hospitals and clinics or helped to set up cooperatives and even businesses. Some of my buddies helped manage forests, museums and new national parks. Others advised about how to set up a touristic hot-spot. We did whatever we were asked for next to nothing which is why we were called volunteers. We trudged home after struggling to learn an alien tongue, adjusting to strange customs, . . .

  PCV Bernice Heiderman (Comoros 2018) died of undiagnosed malaria in 2018. Please read the article Peace Corps faces questions over another Volunteer death (Comoros) posted here in Peace Corps Worldwide. The New York Times published this article, October 2, 2020. The article quotes from the Inspector General of the Peace Corps’ report.  Her parents are preparing to sue the agency over the death of their daughter.  As the Peace Corps evidently plans to send a new contingent of Volunteers overseas, when countries are safe and are willing to welcome new PCVS, the problems identified by the OIG become even more important to resolve.   Click here to read the entire OIG report. Here is the Executive summary: EXECUTIVE SUMMARY “This report provides the results of our review of the circumstances surrounding the death of Peace Corps Volunteer Bernice Heiderman (PCV Heiderman) on January 9, 2018, in Comoros. PCV Heiderman died . . .

  Letter to the Editor The New York Times October 5, 2020   This relates to Sheryl Gay Stolberg’s, “As Peace Corps Gears Up to Redeploy, Its Health Care is Questioned,” that appeared in our Sunday home delivery edition of The New York Times on October 4, and was printed digitally October 2, revised October 3.  The story is an excellent, if saddening report. Two people are completely absent from the article. The director of the Peace Corps in the Comoros and the Peace Corps Director herself, Josephine Olsen. During the formative years of the Peace Corps, 1961-66, volunteer deaths and serious injuries were the responsibility of the Peace Corps Director himself, Sargent Shriver, and myself as founding counsel. The only Peace Corps Washington staff person mentioned in the article is the regional director, a third or fourth ranking official. I happened to be the Senior Duty Officer on a weekend when . . .

Directed by Alana DeJoseph (Mali 1992-94) Reviewed by Kathleen Coskran (Ethiopia 1965-67) • A Towering Task: The Story of the Peace Corps took on a towering task: to tell the story of a 57-year-old government agency where virtually all the people involved were short-timers. Volunteers served two  years, with a few, very few, extending to a third year, and staff were limited to 5 years of service. What RPCVs like me remember is our window of service in the country we served, but the story is much bigger than a single slice of time. Director Alana DeJoseph obviously knows that the best way to portray history is through the stories of participants threaded together, and makes generous use of interviews and film clips beginning with those present at the creation and including volunteers, host country nationals, and staff of every era. It opens with Sarge Shriver earnestly explaining the purpose of the Peace Corps, then moves to John . . .

  By Peter Hessler (China 1996-98) New Yorker Magazine October 5, 2020 On my second visit to the site of the former Huanan Seafood Wholesale Market, at the intersection of New China Road and Development Road, in central Wuhan, I wore a mask and a pair of sunglasses with a loose frame. It was late August, and three security guards in black uniforms sat at the entrance. They examined my passport, checked my temperature, and asked me to scan a QR code that connected to a registration system. The system, though, required a national I.D. number, and the guards seemed uncertain what to do with a foreigner. I handed over the sunglasses and explained that they needed to be repaired. The earliest documented clusters of coronavirus infections had occurred in the Huanan market. During my first visit, a week earlier, I had left after attracting the attention of a man . . .

  Owls of the Eastern Ice: A Quest to Find and Save the World’s Largest Owl Ny Jonathan Slaght (Russia 1999—02) Ferrar, Straus and Giroux August 2020 358 pages $28.00 (Hardcover) Reviewed by: John C. Rude (Ethiopia 1962-64) • This haunting memoir by a former Peace Corps volunteer is not about his Peace Corps experience. Rather, it is a book that explores the mind and heart of the wilderness that could have come from the pen of Jack London, had the author lived a century later and been a volunteer. This tale of a young American traveling in eastern Russia resembles “Call of the Wild” in its sensitivity to the powerful forces of nature, and its passion for human survival. Yet the author’s modern story chronicles the efforts to save a non-human species — the elusive Blakiston’s fish owl — from extinction. No one is better equipped to tell this . . .