250 



Peace Cor^ps task force report to the President 



Shortly after taking office in 1961, President Kennedy established 

 still another Peace Corps task force, this one headed by R. Sargent 

 Shriver, former president of the Chicago Board of Education, to 

 study the feasibility of immediately organizing a Peace Corps. Robert 

 V>. Textor, a social scientist, has suggested that the new President 

 judged that congressional acceptance of the program would be im- 

 measurably improved by having already underway a provisional pro- 

 gram with many volunteers already in training." He adds that the 

 proposal was "* * * faced with the overwhelming concern of simple 

 political survival * * *."' The new agency, engaged in an uncertain, 

 transcultural program, required funding support for a long enough 

 period in its provisional status to prove itself ; it also had to contend 

 with a "* * * general skepticism * * * shared widely among members 

 of what might be called the 'overseas establishment,' the State De- 

 partment Foreign Service Officers, Agency for International Develop- 

 ment * * * personnel, foundation officials, missionaries * * *"' and oth- 

 ers, who perceived the Peace Corps as "* * * an insult, a threat, or 

 both." ^^ Sargent Shriver has confirmed this view.^'-' 



Consistent with the previous efl'orts to bring a wide range of ex- 

 pertise to the planning of the Peace Corps, Shriver gathered together 

 men with broad academic and foreign policy experience to assist him.*° 



Shrivers report to the President, February 22, 1961, was broad in 

 scope. It set objectives for the Peace Corps to aim at; proposed selec- 

 tion and training methods for future volunteers; suggested technical 

 assistance projects in which volunteers would be most likely to be ef- 

 fective (education, community development, public health, construc- 

 tion projects, government administration, and agriculture) ; discussed 

 relationships of overseas contingents of volunteers with U.S. diplo- 

 matic missions; and advised the formation of a National Advisory 

 Council "to permit criticism and review by some of the best men and 

 women in the field of world development * * *.*' Shriver did not 

 favor exemption of Peace Corps volunteers from selective service, 

 nor did he endorse suggestions for a substaiitially international pro- 

 gram.^^ The report acknowledged the work of Millikan and Hayes, 



=" Robert B. Textor, Introduction. In Robert B. Textor, ed., "Cultural Frontiers of tlie 

 Peace Corps" (Cambridge, the MIT Press, 1966), j). 3. 



a' Ibid., pp. 1-2. 



^Sargent Shriver, "Five Years With the Peace Corps," Saturday Review (vol. 49, No. 17, 

 Apr. 2.S, 1966). pp. 14, 18. 54, 57. 



40 Warren Wiggins, Deputy Director of the International Cooperation Administration, who 

 had written a paper entitled "The Towering Task" based on ICA experiences, later to become 

 Director of Program Development and Operations of the Peace Corps ; Dr. Max Millikan. 

 who had studied the proposal for the President-elect ; Dr. Samuel Hayes, who had studied 

 the plan ; Dr. F. Gordon Boyce. director of the Experiment in International Living ; Edwin 

 R. Bayley, former newspaper reporter; Morris B. Abraham, a lawyer; Albert G. Simes. of 

 the Institute of International Education, who was in charge of studying affiliations with 

 universities ; Dr. Howard A. Rusk, consultant on health affairs for the Peace Corps ; Louis 

 B. Martin, newspaper editor, to work with international organizations ; Thomas H. E. 

 Quimby, business executive to work on recruitment ; Arthur S. Adams, president of the 

 American Council of Education, to work on training programs ; Lawrence E. Dennis, vice 

 president in charge of academic affairs at Pennsylvania State College, to survey fulfilling 

 training objectives ; Forrest Evashevski, athletic director, to act as a training consultant ; 

 Lester Gordon, deputy assistant director for planning and economics of the Development 

 Loan Fund ; John D. Young, management consultant ; Bradley Patterson, to establish an 

 executive secretariat ; Carl Bode, of the Agency for International Development ; Harris 

 Wofford, in charge of programs for Africa ; Richard Goodwin. Deputy Assistant Secretary 

 of State ; William Josephson. lawyer and first Peace Corps General Counsel ; and .Tames 

 Grant. Assistant Secretary of State for the Near East. (George E. Sullivan, "The Story of 

 the Peace Corps' (New York, Fleet Publishing Corp., 1964). pp. 30-32; and New Peace 

 Corps, Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists (April 1961), p. 161.) 



••1 U.S. Peace Corps, "Report to the President on the Peace Corps From Sargent Shriver," 

 Feb. 22. 1961 (mimeo. 1961), pp. 1—4, 8-10 ; and U.S. Peace Corps, "Summary of Next Steps 

 From Sargent Shriver" (to the President), Feb. 22, 1961 (mimeo, 1961), pp. 1-4. 



