The Peace Corps, established in 1961 by President John F. Kennedy, emerged during the post-war era of decolonization. It aimed to assist developing countries by providing skilled workers in fields such as education, health, entrepreneurship, women's empowerment, and community development. However, the agency has been a contentious one since its inception.
Peace Corps Volunteers working in a community.
Early Years and the "Peace Corps Postcard" Incident
In its inaugural year, the Peace Corps had 900 volunteers serving 16 countries. Marjorie Michelmore was a 23-year-old Smith College graduate when she applied to the Peace Corps in 1961. Selected to serve as an English teacher in Nigeria, Marjorie became a member of the first cohort of Peace Corps Volunteers (PCVs) sent to the country. After two months of teacher training at Harvard University, the volunteers flew to Nigeria to complete phase two of training at University College in Ibadan.
On October 13, 1961, Marjorie Michelmore wrote a postcard to her boyfriend back in Boston:
“Dear Bobbo: Don’t be furious at getting a postcard. I promise a letter next time. I wanted you to see the incredible and fascinating city we were in. With all the training we had, we really were not prepared for the squalor and absolutely primitive living conditions rampant both in the city and in the bush. We had no idea what “underdeveloped” meant. P.S. I have no idea how it was found.”
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Either way, a Nigerian student found and made copies of the postcard and distributed them throughout the university. The students were furious. They attended rallies and passed resolutions that denounced PCVs as “America’s international spies” and their teaching program as “a scheme designed to foster neo-colonialism”.
While the “Peace Corps Postcard” incident is a well-known story, it is also telling of the agency’s flaws. Marjorie Michelmore represents the ideal PCV in the agency’s early years-a young, recent college graduate. At the heart of the Peace Corps mission was the idea that America’s young people were motivated and enthusiastic global citizens with a deep commitment to humanitarian service.
Criticism and the Cold War Context
The notion of sending young, unskilled college graduates abroad to fix the world’s problems, however, received ample criticism. President Dwight D. Eisenhower referred to the Peace Corps as a “juvenile experiment”. The nick-name assigned to the first wave of volunteers, dubbed “Kennedy’s Kids,” reflects public perceptions of amateurism. Although thousands of young Americans were inspired by President Kennedy’s call to action, PCVs often found that their efforts were not enough to make a large-scale impact.
Development volunteering models, including the Peace Corps, exacerbated a neo-colonialist distinction between “developed” and “developing” nations. In the case of Marjorie Michelmore, Nigerian students condemned the Peace Corps’ teaching program as a “scheme to foster neo-colonialism.” Nigeria had been independent for just one year at the time of the postcard incident. Many newly independent nations were reluctant to allow PCVs into their country to begin with. After seeing the ways in which Marjorie Michelmore described their country, Nigerian students suspected PCVs were “international spies.”
The Peace Corps was, in many ways, a response to the Cold War-an era of heightened international tension, suspicion, and fear. Founded at the height of the Cold War, motivations for the establishment of the Peace Corps certainly venture outside of promoting “peace and friendship” abroad. President Kennedy said:
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“I want to demonstrate to Mr. Khrushchev and others that a new generation of Americans has taken over this country…young Americans [who will] serve the cause of freedom as servants of peace around the world, working for freedom as the communists work for their system”.
This cartoon, published in the Washington Post on June 26, 1962, demonstrates the influence of the Cold War on the establishment of the Peace Corps.
The founders of the Peace Corps were keenly aware of the pervasiveness of Cold War ideology, however. President Kennedy, Sargent Shriver, and others worked hard to allay fears that the Peace Corps would harbor secret agendas or become a tool of the CIA by requiring countries to request volunteers. To this day, previous work with an intelligence agency automatically disqualifies citizens from Peace Corps service. Despite these measures, host countries were still suspicious of the Peace Corps. Concerning Marjorie Michelmore, Nigerian students almost immediately questioned the motives of American volunteers.
The Peace Corps was established as an independent agency within the State Department to avert influence from short-term foreign policy goals. Throughout its history, however, the Peace Corps has struggled to navigate the dynamics between the White House, policymakers in Washington, DC, Peace Corps leadership, and volunteers abroad. The Peace Corps has, at times, strayed from its mission and promoted the White House’s foreign policy goals to remain relevant.
Controversies and Challenges
The Peace Corps has remained a controversial agency throughout its history. Early proponents called for the implementation of a program like the Peace Corps to provide a “moral equivalent to war”. Richard Nixon, however, famously deemed the Peace Corps a “haven for draft dodgers.”
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Poster denouncing the Peace Corps in Colombia. Translation: “The Peace Corps is: 1) an international affiliate of the FBI-CIA, 2) a military corps that supports dictatorships, and 3) yankee mercenaries of the oligarchies.
In 1966, as war raged in Vietnam, over 15,000 PCVs were promoting peace and friendship abroad. There is no greater demonstration of the tension between the altruistic idealism and the harsh political realities that defined the sixties in America. More firmly, the Peace Corps is a crystallization of American attempts to engage with the world in a different, more peaceful way. There is no greater demonstration of the tension between the altruistic idealism and the harsh political realities that defined the sixties in America.
In 2009, Kate Puzey was serving as a Peace Corps Volunteer in the West African country of Benin. Although she asked to remain anonymous, Puzey was found dead shortly thereafter. President Barack Obama signed the Kate Puzey Peace Corps Protection Act in 2011, designed to protect Peace Corps Volunteers and improve the agency’s response to acts of violence and sexual assault. Nevertheless, in 2021, many RPCVs came forward and expressed their disappointment in the Peace Corps after experiencing sexual assault during their time of service, and not receiving support from the organization.
Race, sexual orientation, and gender identity greatly influence Peace Corps experience. African American, Asian American, and Latino PCVs have been questioned if they are really Americans in their host countries. What does this say about perceptions of Americanism abroad? Identifying as gay, lesbian, bisexual, or transgender is illegal in many countries. Queer volunteers often have to weigh coming out to their community with the potential danger that it may put them in.
The Question of Impact and Relevance
The everlasting question of impact has haunted the agency since its inception. Does Peace Corps service primarily benefit the volunteers? Volunteers have the opportunity to live abroad, add to their resume, and receive eligibility for government jobs upon their return. Many volunteers do report that they gain much more from the international communities they serve than they give.
If the Peace Corps is a Cold War relic, is it still relevant? “At 60 years old, has the Peace Corps outgrown its time and relevance? Viewed as an organization meant to provide foreign aid and development, maybe. Just as the Peace Corps faced challenges at home and abroad in the 1960s, the organization faces challenges today. In 2020, for the first time in its history, the Peace Corps evacuated all volunteers from their posts due to COVID-19. During that time, the agency reflected on how they can redefine their mission to remain relevant today. While some view the mission of the Peace Corps as more important than ever, others are vying for its abolishment. Shortly after being evacuated from Mozambique due to COVID-19, 3 PRCVs founded Decolonizing Peace Corps-a project to abolish the Peace Corps.
The Peace Corps has been a contentious agency since its inception in 1961.
The Nigerian Civil War and Peace Corps Volunteers
In the spring of 1966 Peace Corps group XX, which trained at the University of California of Los Angeles for two months, arrived in Nigeria where volunteers were spread throughout the east and mid-west of the country. Initially I was assigned to teach English at a manual arts cum teacher training college in Asaba but when the school closed I was reposted to a newly opened Catholic manual arts training school in Onitsha across the River Niger where I taught sewing and cooking to young girls.
I had been in Nigeria not quite a year and a half when the war broke out. Tensions mounted, and one day the bridge across the Niger was closed, cutting us off from the rest of the country. There were food shortages and rumours flying that war was imminent, and a curfew was enforced. One morning a man from Peace Corps headquarters in Enugu appeared to say that I had an hour to collect a suitcase of belongings before the evacuation of PC volunteers in our sector of the eastern region of the country would begin.
Those of us in Onitsha and close by crossed the Niger by boat and were met by a convoy from the US embassy headed by the consul, a Mr. A year and a half later when I was living in the US I was contacted by a former PC volunteer recruiting people to return to Nigeria as relief workers.
I went back to Lagos in January 1969 to work for Unicef, seconded to the International Committee of the Red Cross who were coordinating relief efforts. The Nigerian civil war had been in the headlines constantly during my absence from the country, with harrowing stories of the suffering in Biafra, where I had once been, so I jumped at the chance to help.
Another Peace Corps Volunteer from December, 1966, till October, 1969, lived and worked as an Agricultural and Rural Development Officer. He started in the Keffi/Nasarawa areas and later moved to Jos and trained Benue/Plateau State community development staff. He also had many Tiv and Idoma friends and spent time visiting those areas as well as doing work in some of those communities. So, a good portion of his time was spent on the fringe of the war area between North and South (Federal/Biafra).
As a Northern Nigeria Community Development Officer in the Middle Belt area (about November 1966 until about October 1969) he had a Morris Mini-Moke vehicle. He began as overseeing Community Development in the Keffi/Nasarawa area. Later, this was expanded to include the Lafia area, all just north of the Benue River. Later, he was moved to Jos and put in charge of Community Development and training of Nigerians for the area that included Keffi, Nasarawa, Lafia and then the Jos area.
One Peace Corps volunteer was tasked with leading a group of Nigerian community development workers from the Benue-Plateau State to do refugee resettlement work in mid to late 1969. They were sent to an area South of the Idoma area of Nigeria, what would be in and near what would be described as North Western Biafra.
Timeline of Key Events in Peace Corps History
Here's a timeline of significant events in the history of the Peace Corps:
| Year | Event |
|---|---|
| 1961 |
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| 1966 |
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| 1967 |
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| 1972 | Released in 1972, this poster by artist Patrick Koeller wins a competition for a design marking the first decade of the Peace Corps. |
| 1971 | President Richard Nixon, an opponent of the program, brought the Peace Corps under the umbrella agency ACTION. |
| 1979 | President Jimmy Carter made the Peace Corps fully autonomous in an executive order. |
| 2020 | In a historic first, all Peace Corps volunteers worldwide were withdrawn from their host countries on March 15, 2020, due to the COVID-19 pandemic. |
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