248 



the host country.") (Also — salaries commensurate with the local standards for 

 these skills) ; 



Supervisory volunteer team leaders stationed in each country where volunteer 

 workers were serving.'*" 



Millikan preferred a gradually evolving program starting "on a 

 limited basis with no more than a few hundred members." The new 

 agency should not itself directly administer overseas programs. There 

 should be a "large amount of experimentation" especially in the 

 early years. Organization and operation of the program should be 

 the subject of continuing research and evaluation. The program should 

 be closely linked to the foreign assistance activities of the United 

 States, and provision should be made for host country citizens to be 

 trained to take over functions initially performed by Peace Corps 

 volunteers.^^ 



The Reus8 conferences on Peace Corps proposals 



Representative Reuss, an early sponsor of the Peace Corps concept, 

 regarded the election of President Kennedy as a mandate for its enact- 

 ment,-- To further the program by elicitmg public reaction to various 

 alternative approaches, he sponsored a series of conferences in De- 

 cember 1960, in New York, at the Brookings Institution in Wash- 

 ington, D.C., and in the House Banking and Currency Coimnittee 

 hearing room. At these meetings he addressed some 50 Members of 

 Congress and representatives of Federal agencies, student leaders, 

 and spokesmen for various public organizations. Apparently a con- 

 sensus emerged out of these meetings as to the general principle of the 

 Peace Corps, and on the proposition that it should not be an alterna- 

 tive to selective service. The conferences were beneficial, also, in con- 

 tributing ideas and data to the study being conducted of the Peace 

 Corps program by the Colorado State University Research 

 Foundation. 



Peace Corps evaluation contract for the Congress 



Of especial interest, as an effort by the Congress to obtain by con- 

 tract a direct social science evaluation in advance of a legislative pro- 

 posal, is the study commissioned to the Colorado State University 

 Research Foundation, To the congressional allocation of $10,000 for 

 the study, the univer.sity added $50,000. The foundation designed and 

 circulated questionnaires to thousands of American citizens, soliciting 

 opinions and suggestions about the idea ; it surveyed nationals, admin- 

 istrators, technical assistance experts, and labor leaders in 10 countries 

 of Asia, Africa, and Latin America, where Peace Corps programs 

 would be established ; and it participated in and interviewed attendees 

 of the Reuss conferences. The preliminary report of the foundation 

 in February 1961 endorsed the concept and recommended that the 

 Congress enact permanent authorizing legislation. Its recommenda- 

 tions as to training and implementation were (in summary) : 



Volunteers should be provided only with a subsistence allowance ; 

 Service should not be an alternative to the draft ; 



30 [Dr. Max Millikan.] International Youth Service, press release, press office of John F. 

 Kennedy, Stanhope Hotel. New York. N.Y., Jan. 9. 1961. (Mimeo, 1961), pp. 3-7. Also re- 

 printed as a task force report in "New Frontiers of the Kenned.v Administration : The Texts 

 of the Task Force Reports Prepared for the President" (Washington, D.C., Puplic Affairs 

 press, 1961), pp. 146-159. 



^ Ibid., pp. 4, 7-S. 



=2 "Youth Peace Corps Held Essential," New York Times (Dee. 20, 1960), p. 30. 



