Peace Corps Traces Roots to Cold War

The Peace Corps has been a small, but potent instrument of American foreign policy for 56 years. In that time, nearly a quarter-million U.S. citizens have traveled to 141 countries, acting as ambassadors of goodwill and lending a hand to poor, isolated communities. Living among the locals for up to a year or more, these volunteers have shared first-world knowledge with third-world people in an effort to improve their lives.

The Peace Corps was always, at its heart, a volunteer organization. During the Cold War, however, public policy was complex and altruism was in short supply. Virtually every decision made in Washington was influenced by the need to stay ahead of the Soviets and stanch the spread of communism. Any international volunteer endeavor would also need to serve as a communicator of American ideals that could win hearts and minds.

The idea of an international volunteer organization had bounced around Washington throughout the 1950s. Democratic Senators Hubert Humphrey and Richard Neuberger were among those who tried to get legislation passed for a “Youth Peace Corps.” The effort didn’t gain traction however, until John Kennedy casually mentioned it on the campaign trail during an impromptu 2:00 a.m. speech at the University of Michigan on Oct. 14, 1960.

No doubt pleasantly surprised at the lively crowd that greeted him in the wee hours, Kennedy may have just been offering some red meat for his college supporters. Many took him at his word, though, and the campaign received petitions from college campuses across the country filled with names of people who wanted to volunteer.

The idea had its detractors. Dwight Eisenhower called it a “juvenile experiment,” and Kennedy’s Republican opponent Richard Nixon claimed that it would become a haven for dropouts and draft dodgers. They did not see the potential that Kennedy did for the Peace Corps to become an instrument of goodwill in the fight against communism, nor did they recognize its capacity to combat negative stereotypes about Americans abroad.

Kennedy kept the idea alive on the campaign trail, as noted in Arthur Schlesinger’s A Thousand Days. “I want to demonstrate to Mr. Khrushchev and others that a new generation of Americans has taken over this country,” Kennedy said, “who will serve the cause of freedom as servants of peace around the world, working for freedom as the communists work for their system.”

It didn’t take Kennedy long to make good on his word. He signed an executive order on March 1, 1961 creating the Peace Corps, and Congress made the agency permanent later that year. No one knew if it would succeed. In fact, Sargent Shriver, the first director of the Peace Corps and Kennedy’s brother-in-law, remarked that he was chosen for the role because it would have been easier for Kennedy to fire a relative than a political friend.

The Peace Corps did succeed, though. Traveling only to places where it was invited and where its safety could be guaranteed, young American volunteers put their skills to work for the poor of the third world. They also won a few hearts and minds along the way.

The program was almost killed in 1969 by an attempt to cut its funding, but President Nixon, who apparently had softened to the Peace Corps over the years, came to the rescue and saved it. In 1972, he would accuse Shriver of using the Peace Corps against him as a Democratic campaign tool for George McGovern, but that’s another story.

Every president since Kennedy has made sure that the Peace Corps has remained intact to do its work. It reached a high of 15,000 volunteers in the mid-1960s, but that dropped off considerably in the 1970s. Ronald Reagan broadened the organization in the 1980s to include business-development and technology programs, earning greater conservative support for the agency that had previously been lacking.

The Cold War came to an end, but the Peace Corps soldiered on with increased funding. It currently has over 7,000 volunteers in 65 countries around the world.