[Alumni-chat] The Origin of the Peace Corps

[Sistersara at aol.com]

In a message dated 1/17/2008 1:57:28 P.M. Central Standard Time,  
lrpjak at verizon.net writes:

Laurie,  

You may know this story.  I found it riveting because I was there  that night
but knew little about the event.  Further, I found out the  man (and woman)
most responsible for the Peace Corps turned out to be a  former President of
Antioch, Al Guskin.  Wow!    



Actually there is an earlier version of Peace Corps, and yes, with an  
Antioch Connection.
 
Beginning about 1956, Hubert Humphrey began introducing a Peace Corps bill  
in the US Senate, and eventually in 1958 he got a hearing in Foreign Relations  
on his bill.  It did not get a vote moving it to the floor, but in his  
campaign for the nomination in 1959-60, the Humph used the issue in his stump  
speech.  
 
Humphrey was rather close to Antioch -- his Senate Office almost always  
hired a co-op, and some moved on from that position to staff positions in his DC  
office, or on the committees where he served.  In fact one of those co-op's  
actually wrote the research report which Hubert used to back up his  proposal.  
I can't remember who wrote the Peace Corps report -- I do  remember that Phil 
Schaffer became a major fund raiser for HHH as a result of  his co-op 
connection.  I believe he also worked in the W. Virginia Primary  where Kennedy beat 
HHH -- important in propelling him toward the nomination in  1960.  (I ran 
into Phil here in Minnesota at a Political Event -- he was  still connected to 
the Humphrey's -- He was busy raising money for Skip  Humphrey's failed Senate 
Race in 1988.)  
 
Anyhow while Humph did not get the nomination in 1960, he did get Peace  
Corps into the National Platform, and it was from that perspective that many  
younger people -- perhaps democrats thinking a little more progressive  than 
Kennedy -- organized to press on Kennedy taking up that plank in the  platform, 
particularly with Student Audiences, and using it in his  campaign.   The key 
person in the Kennedy Staff who was long sold on  Peace Corps, was Harris 
Wofford, who then became special Assistant to Kennedy  for Civil Rights and Peace 
Corps.  Wofford had been teaching in the Law  School at Notre Dame, but he was a 
graduate of Howard Law School from the early  50's -- his choice of law school 
was premised on the fact that he wanted to be a  Civil Rights Lawyer, and 
Howard was probably where you would get the best  education for that goal.  
Wofford had excellent relations with HHH even  though he became a Campaign Staffer 
for Kennedy.  In 1960 Kennedy didn't  know all that much about Civil Rights -- 
or Peace Corps for that matter.   Wofford, on the other hand had spent a year 
in India after he finished  undergraduate school,  (wrote a book about it), 
and had mapped out some  Peace Corps ideas about 1950, and handed them off to 
Humphrey.  
 
Antioch has a real claim to fame in that 1960 Campaign with respect to  Civil 
Rights.  I think this was largely organized by Eleanor Holmes  (Norton) and 
Alphonse Okuku -- but along with the Central State and Wilberforce  students, 
we agreed to picket all the candidate appearances that year, asking  (on the 
signs) how they would respond to the Sit In movement -- which was then  
underway.  Nixon was only in the area for one short event -- a 6AM thing at  the 
Dayton Train Station -- and he ignored the signs, (The Record has some good  
pictures of Antiochians right up in Nixon's face at that event), but Kennedy  spent 
a whole day in the area, Breakfast at the Biltmore in Dayton, an  appearance 
at Town and Country in Kettering, and a large rally at Whittenberg in  the late 
afternoon.  The message was the same at all these events -- speak  out on the 
Sit-in Movement.  Alphonse, because he knew Kennedy through his  brother, Tom 
Myoba, a Kenyan Labor Leader who eventually was murdered, was able  to get 
into the Biltmore event with some of the picketers and make the  case.  But what 
worked was the same tactics showing up at each  appearance.  At Whittenberg, 
Kennedy made a few vague comments about  constitutional rights -- but later 
that night at a rally at Ohio State, he made  a full commitment to the 
objectives of the Sit-in Movement.  A couple  hundred students with signs got Kennedy 
off the dime.  Wofford later told  me that after they left Springfield, and 
were on the way to Columbus, Kennedy  told him to draft the language and put it 
in the speech for that night.  He  said Kennedy knew that he had to be more 
specific than vague constitutional  comments, but he was unsure of himself in 
just coming out and endorsing a  movement.  Anyhow it was Antiochians getting 
organized that got those words  spoken -- and while they may seem small today, in 
the context of 1960 it was  huge.  
 
Sistersara -- whose last Co-Op Job in 1961 was as academic coordinator of  
the first Peace Corps Training Project.  We selected our PCV's from boxes  and 
boxes of letters which had arrived at the WH before the bill was passed,  "Dear 
President Kennedy, I want to volunteer for the Peace Corps, but can't find  
an application. Here is my Vita."   (no, the bill hadn't passed  yet in the 
spring-early summer of 1961).  Our project trained for East  Pakistan, The State 
Department gave me an outline of the subject matter anyone  going to E. 
Pakistan should cover, and it fell to me, as part of my last co-op,  to call faculty 
on the staff of Harvard, Dartmouth, Smith, and others -- and say  "President 
Kennedy would like to invite you to lecture on .... Islam in  Bengal.... to 
the first Peace Corps group now being trained in Putney  Vermont."  I was 
filling out all the State Department recommended  boxes.  Guess what, They all 
showed up with lectures in hand.  
 
In 1962 a goodly number of Antiochians volunteered for the Peace Corps --  
and for some years afterwards.  I don't know exactly what the beef was, but  in 
the 1970's Antiochians began to treat Peace Corps Recruiters the same way  
they treated Marine Recruiters -- something I find profoundly sad.  



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