THE MICHIGAN DAILY
PAGE TEN FRIDAY. JANUARY 12. 1968
SIX YE ARS OLD:
Analyzing the Peace Corps' Impact on the World
I
U
ETJITOR'S NE:n e nPeace
years and has cost $467 million.
Though its successes far outweigh
its failures, controversy still swirls
described both as anoble huani-.
tarian movement and the -greatest
whitewash in the history of govern-
ment.
WASHINGTON (A') -- A young
Peace Corps volunteer arrived in
the remote fishing village of San
Jose in northern Peru, took a
deep breath and asked himself
"What first?"
He decided to persuade the
villagers to form a cooperative to
market their catch. The venture
was successful.
With their new prosperity the
fishermen were able, to buy en-
gines to replace the sails on their
boats and had money to repair
the village's electric generator.
There was one hitch to this
otherwise happy ending: the vol-
unteer had been assigned San
Jose in southern Peru. He had
gone ,to the northern village
through a staff mixup.
Other Activities
Here's a rundown on some of I
the corps' other activities:
*In Africa, volunteers have
worked successfully with local of-
fiigials to help resettle families on
fertile farmland.
* In Brazil, volunteers helped
to expand a school lunch program
to thousands of additional stu-
dents.
* In Thia ila n d, volunteers
worked in a program to help
stamp out malaria. Considerable
progress has been reported.
*In Columbia, the corps is
reaching 500,000 school children
thr'ough educational television.
Some Failures
But in just about eveiry country
where the Peace Corps can point
to successes, failures' can usually
be found - most of them in ur-
ban community development.
"If we could do things differ-
ently, we would have sent fewer
volunteers to the urban areas of,
tatin America," says Jack H.
Vaughn, who in March, 1966, took
over the $28,500-a-year director-
ship from the first head, Sargent
Shriver. "The farther out of the
cities the Peace Corps gets, the
better off we will be."
One of the big reason for th~e
failures was the frustration felt
by the volunteer because - not
given a specific task - he did
not know wha't to do. Another dif-
ficulty was the inability to define
a "community'' in a large city's
slums made up of a population
of unskilled job-seekers. The city
volunteer also lacks status.
'Faeih Cod,'
JHis ruralc ounterpart may be
the only foreigner who has ever
lived in a village. But the city
volunteer usually is just a face
in the crowd.
Volunteers in Ecuador worked
as assistants to city planners and
helped out in city agencies. Then
came a change in city adminis-
tration. The new officials didn't
know what the volunteers were
doing and didn't want them. So
the volunteers packed up and left.
Volunteers were assigned to
hospitals in Tunisia to teach nur-
sing. With few exceptions, they
had frustrating experiences. They
were used as ward nurses and in
other routine jobs before the pro-
gram fizzled out and was dropped.
Despite such failures, the corps
- conceived amid criticism, skep-
ticism, disbelief and fear -- has
come a long way since it was
created by President John F.
Kennedy in March 1961.
Three Goals
By law, it has three goals: to
help underdeveloped countries
meet their needs for trained man-
power; to help promote better un-
derstanding of the American
people in those countries; to help
promote better understanding of
other peoples by the American
people.
There are many who believe the
corps' greatest successes lie in the
last two goals, which are nearly
impossible to gauge.
Initial public response to the
corps was largely favorable, but
skeptics were not hard to find.
Overseas, the corps heard char-
ges - mostly from Communists
and Communist-oriented news-
papers -- that the volunteers were
spies and representatives of the
Central Intelligence Agency. Such
charges were made again this
year in Latin America, Africa and
India.
"The Big Lie has been with us
since 1961 when we sent our
first volunteer overseas,' said
Vaughn. "We don't try to fight
it with words. We just point to
our accomplishments. This usu-
ally explodes the charges in any
community."
The corps also continues to
get caught up in the political
crossfires of countries in which
it serves. Last year, the agency
was asked to leave Guinea - the
first time such a request was
made - because of internal poli-
tics.
End Program
Pakistan, which also ended its
Peace Corps program, said it
wanted higher skills than the
volunteers have, but it is believed
the real reasons were political.
Other countries that have asked
the corps to leave for political
reas6Tis include Ceylon, where a
new government has invited it
back; Indonesia under Sukarno
and Mauritania during last sum-
mer's Middle East crisis.
The Peace Corps has never
been known to hide Its successes
but is quick to acknowledge its
mistakes and tries to rectify
them.
'Learning,'
"We're learning how to do
things better," said Vaughn.
"We're giving the volunteers
better training, we've got better
staff and we're asking host coun-
tries to make long range plans on
what they think their needs will
be.
"We have some past experience ried now compared to one out of
to go on now. We are getting lots every 10 five years ago.
of help from returning volunteers What happens to' the v olun-
who tell us the problems they en- teers once they complete thenr
countered and then we try to Peace Corps tour?
pass this on to the new trainees. Nearly four out of 10 - 37 per
Former volunteers are doing the cent continue their education;
recruiting, the training and run- 19.6 per cent become teachers;
ning programs. 12.2 per cent work for the federal
During the past two years, the government: 10.2 per cent go into
corps has moved away from train- private industry: 7 per cent work
ing its volunteers on the ivy- for nonprivate organizations and
covered campuses of universities 4.1 per cent are employed by state
and colleges and more and more or local governments. The re-
into simulated conditions and ini mainder become housewives, enter
country training. 'military service or retire.
MoreColl e radutesIt is clear that some very high-
MoreCollge radutes grade, high gear and highly moti-
In recruiting, the Peace Corps vated talent is becoming available
hasd zeroed in on the ocollege in the U.S. in increasing number,"
graduate wit a bceo'de- Vaughn says. "For these same
gree - better known around the people who saw in Peace Corps
agency as th B eneralit. service an expression of them-
One trend note: More married selves are finding the same op-
couples are volunteers, One out portunity at home. Our nation'
of every five volunteers is mar- will be the better for it."
Foreig Observers Atac
I
3
LONDON (A') - President John-
son's plans for saving the dollar
have brought gloom to short
term world economic hopes, some
foreign observers say.
Others are now attacking U.S.
involvement in Vietnam for the
high cost in dollars as well as in
lives.
''Both President Johnson's pro-
posals for protecting the dollar,
and the Marshall Plan for re-
habilitating Europe can be seen
as American reactions to mount-
ing political pressures abroad,"
said the Times of London.
"The depressing fact is that,
whereas the Marshall Plan was
expansionist, the Johnson pro-
posals are restrictive-.
"It would be wrong to blame
the President for the measures he
has taken; they had probably be-
come inevitable. But the outlook
for the world is gloomier than it
was 20 years ago when an op-
timistic America was firmly feel-
ing its way toward world leader-
ship."
Measures to preserve the dollar's
value aim at restoring the U.S.
balance of payments. They in-
clude curbs on U.S. investment
overseas and an appeal for Amer-
icans to defer pleasure trips out-
side the Western Hemisphere for
two years.
For most European and many
Asian countries, this means fewer
American dollars from tourists
and foreign based U.S. companies,
and therefore a slow down in
economic growth.
Among other comments gath-
ered from foreign journals by The
Associated Press this week were
these sentiments from the Japan-
ese newspaper Yomiuri: "Presi-
dent Johnson, in making public
his program to defend the dollar,
made no reference to the Vietnam
war. But it is clear that the huge
war expenses have kept the aver-
age U.S. family budget in the
red."
West German editorial writers
took the U.S. economy measures
with surprising calm in the face of
the fact thiat the United Staie,
will certainly ask West Germany
for a bigger share of defense costs
there.
The news magazine Der Spiegel
listed a number of arguments to
justify mushrooming U.S. defense
costs and said such arguments
were all right as long as the
United States restricted itself...
"to taking restricted action in its
own sphere of influence, as in
Guatemala, the Dominican Re-
public or in the Bay of Pigs."
But in Vietnam, the magazine's
publisher, Rudolf Augstein, charg-
ed, 'the entire military machin-
ery of the strongest and most
reasponsible country in' the world
is engaged . . . to keep a corrupt,
overdue puppet regime in power
by means of murder and conflag-
ration."
P residn Quits at U of Hawaii
(Continued from Page 1)
promising enough money for a
first-rate institution. Hawaii has
progressed far toward that goal
with Hamilton as president.
Faculty members fear that the
reaction against this incident may
result in serious retrogression at
the university, both in academic
excellence and the strong liberal
attitude present there. In a private
letter released to The Daily, one
faculty member wrote that there
seemied to be two possible courses
of action:
* Regental refusal of the com-
mittee report, resulting in Amer-
ican Association of University
Professors censure, making it "im-.
possible to find a decent replace-
ment for Hamilton." He added,
"Some authoritarian might be
found who will punish the facul-
ty. The net result of such a course
will be a regression of the Univer-
sity to its former state."
*Tthe other course is accept-
ance of the report and a search
for "a liberal president who will
continue to build the University.
I have little hope that under the
political pressures coming to them
now the regents will be able to
make this decision."
The "political pressures" in the
letter refer to the essentially con-
servative nature of the state, ac-
cording to Dr. Theodore Becker;
now at Wayne State University, on
leave from Hawaii.
He explained that two features
make the state conservative:
* the presence of a small num-
ber of major land-holding inter-
ests on the major island, Oahu;
and
|milton's record as an enlightened
defender of academic freedom,
which was testified to by MSU
professors, where he was once a
vice-president.
The prospects for the University
of Hawaii are not clear at present.
The regents have not yet acted on
the comittee's report, but no pos-
sible course, short of persuading
Hamilton to return and accept the
committee's action, will repair the
breach that has formed at the uni-
versity, among both faculty, ad-
ministration, and in the state of
Hawaii.
IT'S THE RAGE
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