Where is Peace Corps

"Our Volunteers are overseas because they want to help people learn, or take care of their health, or increase their agricultural production, or raise their incomes. They cannot convey this at a distance as President Kennedy did, but they do it by being there; by demonstrating every day, with their work, that they are trying to help."
Washington, D.C. • February 21, 1964

Two clear and powerful impressions have remained etched in my mind since my recent trip around the world.

First was the enormous impact of President Kennedy’s death on the little people of the small towns and villages of the entire world of free men.

Second was the enormous impact the Peace Corps has had on the attitudes of the people of every country in which Volunteers are working.

And I am certain that both of these rest on the same foundation.

When I arrived in Israel, on the first leg of my trip, former Prime Minister Ben Gurion told me that the death of President Kennedy was the occasion of the “first world-wide mourning in the history of man.”

The rest of my trip proved that he was right.

Our Volunteers in small Turkish villages told me how their students had come to class after the assassination weeping openly.

In the countryside of Iran, one of our workers was approached on November 22 by a fellow worker who, with tears in his eyes, announced, “Our President is dead.”

In Nepal, villagers walked for more than five days to the place where our Volunteers were working, just to bring them the news.

In other towns of the Near and Far East people spontaneously assumed the garb of mourning. In several places local high schools searched for a flag, which they ordinarily did not use, just so they could fly it at half mast.

Everywhere, mayors and tribal chiefs, as well as Kings and Presidents, told us they had never seen such a universal outpouring of emotion, of grief and loss, at the death of a foreign leader.

I could multiply such stories a hundred fold. And I think it is typical of America that, as much as we admired President Kennedy, few in this country had any real conception of the place this man had found in the hearts and the hopes of the world’s people. Why is it? What were the qualities of John F. Kennedy that he could reach into the villages of Turkey, penetrate the mud huts of the altiplano of Peru, become meaningful to illiterate workers in Nepal whose only contact with the outside world is a transistor radio?

This is an important question. It is important not merely as the epilogue to the career of a great man. It is important because in the answer we will find a clearer understanding of our strength as a nation and how we can use that strength to help create the kind of world we want.

Through the Peace Corps, I believe, we can find part of that answer. For the Peace Corps was his creation. In a unique way it reflected his ideas and qualities. And, consequently, it has had, in its own way, a similar impact among the people of the world.

In Thailand I received an honorary degree from Chulalongkorn University-- only the second awarded to an American. It was in honor of the work of the Peace Corps in that country. At the ceremony the Foreign Minister of Thailand said:

“Many of us who did not know about the United States thought of this great nation as a wealthy nation, a powerful nation, endowed with great material strength and many powerful weapons. But how many of us know that in the United States ideas and ideals are also powerful. This is the secret of your greatness, of your might, which is not imposing or crushing people, but is filled with the hope of future good and understanding. It is indeed striking that this important idea, the most powerful idea in recent times...should come from this mightiest nation on earth...the United States.

In the Philippines the Peace Corps recently became the first non-Asian group to win the Ramon Magsaysay award, given to persons in Asia who “exemplify in spirit, integrity and devotion to liberty,” the late President of the Philippines.

In Arequipa, Peru -- when the Peace Corps was attacked by the Communists -- the answer came not from the government or diplomats, but from the ALFA -- the “Association Urbana del Poblacion Arequipena.”... the slum dwellers of Arequipa who live in some of the worst conditions in the world. Their alcalde -- or leader -- said, “We raise our most energetic protest against the attitude of a few persons who saw the reality of the benefits being received by thousands of workers.”

In the Dominican Republic a group of people were writing “Yankee Go Home” on a wall, while one of our Volunteers watched. When they finished he said, “I guess that means I’ll have to go home.” They turned and said, “No, we mean Yankees, not the Peace Corps.”

Recently in Africa, a child, seeing one of our Volunteers enter his village, turned to his mother and said, “Look, there’s a white man.” “NO,” she answered, “He’s not a white man. He’s a Peace Corps Volunteer.”

I could multiply these stories, and tell you of other awards. But the point I am trying to illustrate was most eloquently expressed by a local official in Sarawak, who said of the Volunteers who were helping him cut road through the jungle: “They’re not your people anymore, they’re mine.”

And, on a larger scale, this was true of John Kennedy, When he died, he was no longer America’s, he was the world’s.

The world of free men had taken Kennedy as their own. Why they had done so is illustrated by a remark made by Colombian president Lieras Camargo after Kennedy received a tumultuous welcome in the streets of Bogota.

“Do you know why those workers and compesinos are cheering you like that?” President Camargo asked.

“It’ s because they believe you are on their side. “

This is true. I have seen it...etc.

This is true. I have seen it on every continent of the world. But why is it true? President Kennedy was only one man. The Peace Corps consists of only a few thousand Americans scattered over four continents.

It is not because we are a powerful and important nation, nor because President Kennedy could make decisions which would affect the lives of men around the world. The world has seen powerful nations and powerful men before. In the area of the Middle East and Asia where I just visited, Darius the King and Alexander the Great once held the power of life and death over millions. Great nations have had great empires, and their leaders, in Shakespeare’s words, did “bestride the narrow world like a Colossus.” Many of them had far more command over their worlds than John F. Kennedy had over his. But although they ruled men’s destinies, they rarely ruled their hearts in as universal and profound a way.

No, power alone is not the secret. The key is simply that several qualities came together in a single person, at one time, when the world was hungry for those qualities.

First, he was a man of ideas and of ideals. It is true that he was a man of action; a man who knew how to use power and when not to use it. But at the core of all his actions was a deep set of convictions and beliefs. To him freedom, racial justice, human welfare, individual dignity were not just casual rhetoric, but deep commitments to which he gave his energy and ultimately his life. The people of the world sensed this. It is easy for Americans to become cynical about the importance of ideas; to become too impressed with the importance of wealth and power. But the strength of our own country rests upon the ideals of the small group of men who ran our revolution. This also is the secret of the success of Christianity and Islam, of the Industrial Revolution and the Renaissance. Victor Hugo wrote that “no army in the world can withstand the strength of an idea whose time has come.” And history proves that men who combine practical action with commitment to ideals have a far more profound and enduring impact than those who simply seek power and wealth.

And the Peace Corps is committed to an ideal. Today I have brought with me some of the people who work for the Corps. They work and volunteer for the Peace Corps because they believe that with their own hands and skills they can cross boundaries of culture and tradition to meet others on the common ground of service to human welfare. I will introduce them to you later. These people aren’t looking for jobs. You couldn’t pay them for what they did, and are doing both abroad and here at home. The Peace Corps started in one room. It now occupies 12 floors. But if Congress closed the entire operation down tomorrow, there wouldn’t be an unemployed person the next morning.

We must not make the mistake that many people make when, for example, they criticize the Alliance for Progress on the grounds that it has not raised national incomes enough or increased the flow of capital. The real question is whether it has helped create faith in the future, confidence that the job is possible, and trust in the honest intentions of the United States. These qualities, and not dollar bills or guns, will shape this hemisphere.

Second, President Kennedy was a man of peace. Whether it was his restraint in the Cuban missile crisis or his successful efforts to secure a test ban treaty, the policies and the posture of his administration left little doubt that he desired a world where war was no longer a daily threat. And since this is what the world wants, they loved him for it; and far from being afraid of American power, they felt more secure that it was in his hands.

The Peace Corps, too, is an instrument of peace. Its members espouse no party line or try to extend the political domination of their country. They go to work with and learn from people of every country. They are concerned with how people can live better, not how they can fight better.

Third, President Kennedy was a man of this generation. Today 55 percent of the world’s population is 25 or under. They saw in President Kennedy a man who had come to maturity in their time, who shared their experiences, their nearness with conflict, their hope that some how our new knowledge could become an instrument to make life more meaningful and abundant. He was a product of today’s world and his life seemed to stretch forward into the future rather than back into the past.

This is true also of the Peace Corps-- the idea which he had the daring to put into practice. Volunteers are primarily men and women of this generation -- who can meet on common ground with their counterparts across the world. When we began many said that we could not afford to send young and inexperienced Americans to serve overseas. But the opposite has been true. We cannot afford not to send our young and dedicated citizens abroad. For they show the world the face of the real, not the Ugly, American.

Fourth, he was, in the most meaningful sense, a volunteer. He, and many others of his Administration, proved that Americans are not content to sit back and idly enjoy the comforts of our abundant society. For him the commitment to public service overrode all thoughts of private pleasure or gain. He spent much of his own energy seeking to ennoble the practice of politics and the work of government, believing a great nation deserved the best of its men. In a speech just before his death President Kennedy quoted Robert Frost as saying “Nothing is true except as a man or men adhere to it--to live for it, to spend themselves on it, to die for it.” This might well be among his epitaphs.

And this is also true of the Peace Corps. Our 7,500 Volunteers have all given up opportunities to live comfortably in America, to -go into distant countries, to work without pay, under difficult and sometimes even hazardous conditions. They have done this because they have found more meaning in service than in the pursuit of pleasure, or the easy life. Nothing is more astonishing to people around the world than to see young Americans choosing to leave-America -- especially the America foreigners only know from the movies -- to share their liver And they do this not because they have to, but because they want to -- as John Kennedy wanted to serve his country and the world.

Fifth, President Kennedy cared. He cared for the hungry, the dispossessed, the hated and the fearful. And the people of the world knew that. Much of their feeling came from his-activities at home—his fight for racial justice and an end to poverty--as well as his concern for economic development and social justice abroad. How did they know it? It was not because they were acquainted with his policies or programs or read his speeches. Many cannot read at all. They knew it through that curious sixth sense by which people detect compassion and concern and unmask phoniness and vanity. This is something we have seen at work in our own democratic process. To them he was not a remote, commanding figure in a far off capital, but a man whose presence and concern reached into their farms or their homes in slums. I still am taken aback when I walk into a village hut on a distant continent and find a picture of John Kennedy on the wall, torn from a newspaper and placed beside the family album or mementos.

The Peace Corps, too, is an organization which cares. Our Volunteers are overseas because they want to help people learn, or take care of their health, or increase their agricultural production, or raise their incomes. They cannot convey this at a distance as President Kennedy did, but they do it by being there; by demonstrating every day, with their work, that they are trying to help. In a remote village of only 500 people in Afghanistan a Volunteer lives as a teacher. Throughout the entire valley, spread over many miles with 20,000 people, he is known as “the American who has come to teach us.”

Of course, President Kennedy’s intelligence and capacity were respected. They were vital to his success. But these other qualities won him his place in men’s hearts. He was not a father protector, a medicine man who would solve all problems. He was a man who gave people confidence that problems could be solved and that they could solve them.

He did not ask that people believe in him. He asked that people believe in themselves.

This touches the deepest hope of all.

And even though it is only a few months since his death, I found around the world that there is already a growing sense of relief and gratitude that these basic beliefs and attitudes are still vigorously guiding the United States that they will continue to help shape its policies.

In a remote area of Nepal some of our Volunteers were introduced to the local citizens as “Westerners.” After they had worked there for a few months a delegation cautiously approached them and said: “You can’t be Westerners. What are you?” A Volunteer answered, “We are Peace Corps Volunteers.” “Oh,” the Nepalese replied, “and where is Peace Corps?”

Peace Corps is right here. It is the real “other America.” It exists somewhere underneath the tinsel, the swimming pools and neon signs, the racial hatred and the poverty. It is the America we are often embarrassed to talk about unless we hide it in the lyrics of songs; but which in times of need we have ultimately managed to be true to. If we have the courage to commit ourselves to this America--to work for it, to believe in it, then we maybe equal to the hopes John Kennedy had for us.

Peace requires the simple but powerful recognition that what we have in common as human beings is more important and crucial than what divides us.
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Sargent Shriver
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