U.S. Peace Corps

Press, Volume C, Issue 29474, 28 March 1961, Page 14

U.S. Peace Corps

President Kennedy’s “ Peace “ Corps ” plan, which was launched on March L has drawn an encouraging response from United States teachers, dentists, doctors, and other young people who can offer not only the technical skills but the idealism demanded by this far-sighted project The corps is inspired by some of the lessons the gigantic and generous United States aid programmes have taught Money, machinery, and technicians can go only so far in helping struggling peoples to liberate themselves from the bonds of hunger, ignorance, and poverty. As President Kennedy said in the message inaugurating the Peace Corps, one of the greatest obstacles to the achievement of this goal is the lack of trained men and women with the skill to teach the young and assist in the operation of development projects—men and women able to cope with the demands of swiftly evolving economies, and prepared to work in the villages, the mountains, the towns, and the factories of struggling nations. Members of the Peace Corps will be unpaid; they will live with the people they seek to help. It is intended that they should fill the gap between the present technical advisers and local experts on the one hand and the relatively unskilled local labour on the other Though not welcomed everywhere, there has been a sufficient response from countries the Peace Corps is designed to serve to show that it is feasible, needed, and wanted The promoters of the Peace Corps project, from the President down, recognise the need to keep the Peace Corps above suspicion of political purposes. They are aware of the sensitiveness of many in the

new States and in the underdeveloped States to any suggestion of interference in their affairs; and they are well aware that .a some of these United States foreign aid of all kinds is viewed with distrust. How, then, can the Peace Corps show that this is not just another, subtler, kind of propaganda? Naturally, it is hoped that by sharing the talents and training of America, friends will be won for the United States and for democracy; but even this is secondary. The aim will be service, patience, endurance, and example, without thought of reward or even of gratitude. President Kennedy believes that the project will affect the mood of the United States itself. Young American men and women, enriched by the experience of living and working in foreign lands, will return, the President expects, “ bet- “ ter able to assume the “responsibilities of American citizenship and with “ greater understanding of “ its global responsibilities ”.