The Vision

(Written in 2001 by Sargent Shriver, founder of the Peace Corps under President Kennedy and first director from 1961-1966)

Oscar Wilde is said to have observed that America really was discovered by a dozen people before Columbus but that the discovery remained a secret. I am tempted to feel that way about the Peace Corps. A national effort of this type had been proposed many times in previous years, but only in 1961 did it become reality.

In quantitative terms, the Peace Corps has never been a big idea. It started in the first year with a few thousand Americans being dispatched to serve in the underdeveloped world, and though the number has gone up and down, the concept has remained essentially the same. Compared with the millions in uniform who have served America abroad, the ambition was modest-- perhaps too modest. Compared with the funds our government transmits in foreign aid to countries less affluent than ours, the budget was barely visible. Still, those of us who were present at the creation nurtured the notion that the Peace Corps had a huge potential for promoting the peace of the world and the well-being of humanity. After forty years, though poverty and war remain with us, I think I see some evidence that we were right. Qualitatively, the Peace Corps has succeeded.

My own interest in the Peace Corps idea had started quite a few years before, when I was part of and, later, leader for the Experiment in International Living groups in Europe in the 1930s. In the 1950s I visited several Asian countries- Japan, Korea, Vietnam, Cambodia, Thailand- and, when I returned I proposed sending three-man political action teams to Asia, Africa, and Latin America. These teams were to consist of vigorous and imaginative young labor leaders, businessmen, and politicians. They would offer their services at a grass-roots level and work directly with the people, contributing to the growth of the economies, to the democratic organization of the societies and to the peaceful outcome of the social revolutions under way. When the idea of the Peace Corps emerged during the presidential campaign of 1960, it seemed to offer the possibility of realizing, in a new form, this old objective, which seemed to me more important than ever.

A month or so after President Kennedy took office, he asked me to report to him on how the Peace Corps could be organized, and then to organize it. John Kennedy believed Americans had decent ideals that were going untapped, and a physical and spiritual resilience that was being unused. He told me to make the Peace Corps a tough agency, to prove wrong those who were skeptical about the willingness of Americans, especially young Americans, to make the kinds of sacrifices that the Peace Corps would require. “Go ahead, “ he said, “you can do it,” and to do it we assembled the best people we could find from the professions, from our universities and foundations, from our corporations and unions, from private agencies and civil service. We knew the Peace Corps would have only one chance to work. We felt like parachute jumpers: The chute had to open the first time, or we were sure to come to an abrupt end.

Within the team I had assembled, we wrested with a hundred questions of policy, debating around the clock, in those early days of 1961. Not the last of the questions was the name we would give to the undertaking. For a while, “Peace Corps,” which Kennedy had used during the election campaign, was not the first choice. Some of the president’s advisors scoffed at it, arguing for a solid bureaucratic title like “Agency of Overseas Voluntary Service.” Conservatives, furthermore, said the word “peace” sounded soft, vague, and weak. They insisted communists had corrupted it by applying it to every political initiative and even to every war they were involved in. Not to be outdone, many liberals disliked the word “corps.” They said it sounded militaristic. But I thought we should try to recapture the term “peace,” to liberate it, so to speak. I thought we should be able to use it without it sounding like propaganda, metaphor, or corn. As for “corps,” I was not uncomfortable with conveying the militance of our purpose, at least a quiet militance. The fact was that I could not visualize the elimination of war except through the kind of effort in which the Peace Corps was to engage. Peace was our goal, and we were not embarrassed to envisage this effort as a genuine way station along the road.

Our Peace Corps task force worked literally day and night for weeks, readying recommendations for the president. John Kennedy had set the theme of the new administration with his inaugural statement, “Ask not what your country can do for you, ask what you can do for your country.” Those were inspiring words, and at that point, many were asking, “All right, what can we do for our country?” We considered speed essential in order to maintain the momentum of the Kennedy theme.

By March 1, 1961, we were ready with a detailed report, which recommended to President Kennedy the Peace Corps’ immediate, full-scale establishment. We rejected proposals for pilot programs or small, experimental initiatives. We asked for an independent agency, not answerable to the Agency for International Development, and we turned down suggestions to limit the mission of the Peace Corps to supplementing efforts of the Junior Red Cross, the Chamber of Commerce, or other American groups working abroad. We rejected uniforms, badges, medals, and any other distinctive clothing, along with rankings and grades. We said we wanted no special housing, food, schools, or anything else, except health services: We decided to send our own doctors to care for the Volunteers. We even promised to discourage vacations in the “fleshpot” cities of the world, though many were accessible.

Since 1961, the Peace Corps has sent more than 165,000 Americans to serve overseas. They are patriots, committed to the special vision upon which the Peace Corps was founded, and they have helped to disseminate this vision far and wide. As Americans in service abroad, they have gone beyond careerism, beyond fun and adventure, to dedicate their best efforts to the idea of raising up humanity.

The Peace Corps is unique among American institutions. Though it is an agency of government, it is profoundly nonpolitical. That does not mean the Peace Corps is indifferent to the national interests of the United States. But it was conceived to reach beyond domestic political goals, and beyond international rivalries, to touch the deepest hopes of man. Without trumpets, banners, or weapons, the Peace Corps serves America abroad. It renders this service to our country by promoting an idea of an America that is caring and humane. I suspect the reason so few people appreciate our ideas and ideals is that we ourselves fail to understand our potential in this area. As a result, we consistently sell ourselves short. When we hear of a “secret” American power, our minds seem to turn automatically to killer devices. It is true that our weapons and our wealth are what are most clearly visible to the majority of the world. But our real “secret” power, I believe, is the vitality of our democratic life. I would like to quote David Crozier, who lost his life in an air accident while serving as a Peace Corps Volunteer in Colombia. In a sadly prophetic letter to his parents, he said, “Should it come to it, I would rather give my life trying to help someone that to give my life looking down a gun barrel at him.”

But let me assert the Peace Corps is no naive organization, aiming to do good while indifferent to the existence of evil in the world. We know the United States is involved in a contest of ideologies being waged in many arenas, not the least of them the underdeveloped nations. The Peace Corps plays a role in this struggle. But let us be clear that its role lies not in its solicitation of these nations’ support for America’s political positions, much less our alliances. The role lies in the contribution the Peace Corps makes to their success. If these countries succeed in their plans for economic, social, and political progress, it will not matter much whether they agree with us on a given issue, or even whether they like us. If they become healthy, democratic societies, they will not be a threat to world peace. This is what matters.

The arena in which the Peace Corps makes its stand for America is in the nations where a peaceful outcome to the world’s ideological struggle remains possible. Most of the African continent meets that test, as do Latin America and East Asia. But I exclude no region of the world. Though the Peace Corps Volunteers carry no rifles to battle, they serve their country on fronts that are vital to the peace of the world. They serve in the developing world, home for hundreds of millions of people whose only ideology is to create a decent life for themselves, a life that measures richness with dignity, that is free of fear and instability. The time to reach them is not when military action becomes necessary, when war or violent revolution is impending. Peace Corps Volunteers are not trained to deal with enemies bearing arms. Their enemies are hunger, ignorance, and disease. By forcing these enemies into retreat, the Peace Corps serves humanity’s interests, and America’s.

It seems a paradox to say that Peace Corps Volunteers make their contribution to American foreign policy by staying out of the foreign policy establishment, but it is true. Peace Corps Volunteers are not trained diplomats, not propagandists. For the most part, they are not even technical experts. They represent our society by what they are, what they do, and the spirit in which they do it. They scrupulously steer clear of intelligence activities and local politics. The Peace Corps’ strict adherence to these principles has been a crucial factor in the decision of politically uncommitted countries to invite American volunteers into their homes, and even into their classrooms to teach future generations of national leadership. In an era of sabotage and espionage, Peace Corps Volunteers have earned a priceless but simple renown: They are trustworthy.

When the Peace Corps goes abroad, it spreads the ideal of a free and democratic society. Its strategic premise is the sense of concern that every member has shown by the act of volunteering. The Peace Corps’ secret weapon is example. This example proclaims that in America, the color of a Volunteer’s skin, or a human’s religious or political beliefs, do not determine personal dignity and worth. We have sent black Americans to white men’s countries, white Americans to black men’s countries. We were told that we could not send Protestants to certain parts of Catholic countries in Latin America, and that we could not send Jews to Arab countries. But we sent them. Rarely have these decisions spawned discontent. Far more often, they have elicited admiration, and if I may say so, even envy. On a practical level, what a Volunteer has left behind may be a newly constructed well, or a proficiency among a few students in English, or a better way to raise corn. But he or she has also left behind the germ of the Peace Corps vision, and it is a germ that inevitably spreads. I believe there are few more important contributions to be made.

We never meant for Peace Corps Volunteers to go abroad as promoters of a particular political theory or economic system, much less a religious creed. But that did not mean they were without a mission. The Volunteer goes overseas as a willing and skilled worker. He or she also goes as a representative of the ideals that America, with all its imperfections, embodies better than any society in our time. It is the idea that free and committed men and women can cross, even transcend, boundaries of culture and language, of foreign tradition, and great disparities of wealth and culture, to work in harmony with one another. The Peace Corps has a commitment to overcome old hostilities and entrenched nationalisms, to bring knowledge where ignorance has dominated, to challenge traditions that may enslave, even as it respects the societies from which they emerge. The Peace Corps was designed for different cultures to meet on the common ground of service to human welfare and personal worth so that men and women might share what is valuable in the spirit of each.

Those of us who were around at the beginning conspired in sending Volunteers off on assignment as free men and women. I say “conspired” because what they secretly carried in their baggage, along with the books and clean socks, was the Peace Corps idea. As Americans, they were free to travel, to write, to read, and to speak as they chose. They were surrounded by no wall of censorship, nor constrained by any authoritarian code of discipline. They were trained to work with people, and not to employ them or give them orders. Volunteers from the start were instructed to do what the country in which they served wanted them to do, not what they, out of some sense of cultural superiority, thought was best for their hosts. That does not mean volunteers did not often have to rely on their own initiative to make best use of their time and talent. The Peace Corps encouraged their initiative. The staff provided the framework and then relied on the creative energies of dedicated individuals to fill in the spaces.

For forty years the Peace Corps has remained faithful to this vision. Very early, the Peace Corps perceived the trap of neocolonialism, and Volunteers understood that they must, if necessary, go out of their way to avoid it. They have lived not in some figurative house on the hill, not in isolated compounds or chic neighborhoods, but physically among the people they have served, in intimate contact with them. A visiting Ghanaian once said to me, “Peace Corps teachers in my country don’t live so badly. After all, they live as well as we do.” We did not inflict discomfort on the Volunteer for discomfort’s sake. Rather, by their way of life Volunteers have shown that material privilege has not become the central and indispensable ingredient in American life.

From the beginning, Peace Corps Volunteers have not only lived sparely but eaten the food and talked the language of rural villagers, of dwellers of the barrios, of communities of seaside fishermen. They shopped for bargains in the marketplace and rode in buses or on bicycles. They enjoyed no diplomatic immunity and observed the same local laws as everyone else. They received modest living allowances in the field, sums fixed to match local conditions, far from conventional American salaries. They sweated in hot climates without air conditioning and made their own fires in wood stoves when the weather was cold.

Living in the developing world, Peace Corps Volunteers have learned new facts of life. They have escaped from what is all too often a kind of cultural imprisonment, brought on by American affluence, and exposed themselves to the reality of life in much of the world. This is a world that, for all of its richness of culture, often still lives on the edge of survival. I could feel the suffering of the Peace Corps Volunteer who wrote to me from East Africa, “People die here for want of so little.” How many Americans have the painful privilege of learning that lesson?

The Volunteers who brought back from their experience abroad a revised sense of the human condition also acquired an appreciation of the fact that answers to its problems are generally more complex than they appear at first glace. Those who think there are panaceas for the ills of emerging nations, who believe all that is needed is more money or more schools or a few more dams, or even more democracy or more private enterprise, never served in the Peace Corps. The wisdom that Volunteers brought back with them has added to the reservoir of compassion and understanding in America. It has provided our nation with insight in to the thinking of the great majority with whom we share the globe. But Peace Corps Volunteers, because they were toilers and not just observers, also learned that they need not sit by impotently while others suffer. That too, is an important lesson for America.

So, in 2001, we look back across forty years of soul-filled history. We have known the summer heat of the Sahara, the biting cold of the Alte Plano of Peru, the endless rain of the Asian monsoons. We have often overcome the obstacles of the federal bureaucracy, only to stumble over our won mistakes. But we have survived, and precious gifts have been bestowed upon us. We have seen the smile on the face of a child whom a Volunteer has taught to read. We have been grateful that a Volunteer has had a hand in building a feeder road, establishing a credit union, forming a cooperative for buying a tractor or marketing fish. We have marveled at the energy of a people in a dusty village after a Volunteer has persuaded them to lift the dead hand of hopelessness.

In forty years, the Peace Corps has made a start. The idea is in the air, a seed being carried on the breeze of human contact to people and institutions throughout the world. I do not know how many converts the Peace Corps has made, but I would like to think it has dealt a solid blow to ignorance and hunger. I want to believe it has moved human dignity to a higher plane. I pray it has moved peace a trifle closer, while chasing the shadow of nuclear war to a more distant reach.

Regretfully, I acknowledge it will require more time and still greater effort for the vision of the Peace Corps to win the world. That a pugnacious nationalism seems once again to be sweeping over our country does not so much mean that the Peace Corps has failed as that it has not tried hard enough. I know that, even in its brief life, the Peace Corps has emitted a glow, faint though it may be, that has helped light the way to a better and more peaceful life over a great area of the Earth’s surface. I take its triumphs, however, not as a cause for congratulation, but as a challenge. After forty years, the task ahead is clear: to bring the Peace Corps and its ideals back to the top of America’s agenda.