The:Peace Corps

Ask not what your country will do for you, said

Pre-sident Kennedyintheperoration
of his inaugural
address, ask what you ,can do foryour country. The
response to the Peace Corps idea-which idea the President got from Senator Hubert Humplirey and
Representative Henry, Reuss-indicates
t h a t a great many
Americans are ready i o act on Mr. Kennedys exhortation. In the Peace Corps headquartersthe telephone
13ever stopped ringing, and the bulging mail sacks never
stopped coming in.
Nor is this a children,s crusade, as someskeptics
havc suggested it might become. By teen-age standards,
Rafer Johnson, 27, the Olympic decathlon champion, is
pushing middle age; Forest Evashewki, athletic director
at the Unliversity of Iowa, -is i n the sunset years (42),
and60-year-old Dr. Howard Rusk, professor of physicaleduca.tlon at New York Universityandaneditor
of TIMNeezu P o r k Times, ,is practically a Civil War veteran. Y e t thesethree were amongtheinquirers.
Presumalbly Dr. Rusk is not thinking of joining the Peace
Corpshimself,
but thowide rangeand .,intcns!ty of
illrerest gives the lie to t h e notion t h a t Americans arc
dedicated only to the. subudban split-level, the dry
martini and the vice presidency of the company.
It would be criminal t o dissipate this u11,surge ol enthusiasm,which is of thevery essence OF youthand
health and hfe. Nor need we pay attention to the Old
Guard Republlcans to nrhom any new idea is an abolni.!lation, especially if it co~ncsfrom a Delnocratic President, still less must we reckop w i t h the hilatic fringc,
like the California State Con,lerence of the Daughters
of the Aalerican Revolution, which bewailed the menial
physicallabor which our young men might be called
ou to do overseas a n d their employment at bare subsistence vages ~ v h e n ,one rnendxr argued, private industry at home ~vouldpay tlmn any-whei-e ram $600
t o $2,000 a month. R u t whe11 RepresentativeFrances
Bolton, who thinks thePeacc COrps is terrifying,
suggests tI1at tllc pace may b e too fast,the administrators had better ljstep: t l i s thing m u s t be done right: or
it had better not be done a t all.et

Dedacation is not enough. Eagerne.ss is not enough,

nor a wanm heart. Those chosen t o serve in the Peace
Corps must be alble t o give what is neede,d to the countries where they are assigned, and that requires technical
competcnce as ~vellas love of counltty and love of lmmanity. T.he situation recalls one that .followed the
Russian revolutaion. A few A,merican
revolutionaries,
among them Blll Hayward and Emma Goldman, shook
the dust of American capitalism from their feet and departed to the Red Utapla. There was nothinlg for them
to.do. The Russians didnt need revolutionists; they
needed engineers.
. If the Peace Corps needs a year bdore it is prepared
t o scrve some countries, a year it will have to be. Butand here is where administrative skill comes in-there
khould not bf: a single day of unnecessary delay. In some
r
frelds, suchas
the teaching of English, considerable
speed should Le possible. T h e way in which this project
IS managed and whether the enthusiasm is sustained or
dies away l ~ k eajulre box hit. song, will beatest
of
Rlnericasqualificationsforinternationalcooperation
in the sixties. T h e light which performance in tchis project will throw on the UnitedStates will be onlyless
important than the help I t m a y give to other countrie6.
If a new missile were involved, and hundreds of millions
ol dollars in profit,
the necessary urgency would automatically be generated. Here there is no profit and no
opportunity for massslaughter. It is a novel killd 01
challengc.

Business as Peqce coaj?s

As a practical matter, the Kennedy-Humphrey-Reuss
Peacc C o ~ p scan hardly be expected t o affect American
relationsabroad to the same extent as American business investment, whiclh has increased enommusly since
the end of W O ~ I C IW a r 11. SenatorAlexander
Wiley
(R., Wisconsin) sees thrsclearly. niter \the usual introductolypronouncement ( i n theMarch 3 Cangressio?laZ R e c o r d ) t h a t the United States and its allies are
locked in a life-and-death struggle against communism,
thc Scnator gives advice to businessmen sewing theis
country abroad. H e invokesLincolns
dlctum t h a t a
fundamental principle of liie a!ld service is a selfless

I-I

dedication to a great cause. T o de utterly selfless mjg1l.t:

be a trrflcdllficultforbusinessmenservlngtheir
companies, b u t d l c u h e g e t s down to cases Senator WiIey
does not ask t.00 much. H e urges hls pupils to particithe host countrys efforts toimprovehealth,
].e., contrfbztte t ot h e
local
equivalent of the Community Chest. B u t h ~ fs m t point,
and t h e one most hkely to be f,ollowed,is to adopt
prtblic, relations progrnrns to create afavorablepublic
opinion. . . .
While Senator W.iley has been thus engaged in ethical
discourse,
Rlchard
D u d m an hasbeen,reportingthe
actualperfocmance of AmerlcancorporationsinLatin
Americain a series of artlcles for the S t . LOUICT
Post, Dirpcxtclt. In Peru he found them engaged ip a combination of public relations a n d good works with public relations glmrnicks apparently uppermost.
The list of projects df theComite
Por Venezuelastartswiththe
awarding of four-year
a
sch,olarship
( m theUnited
States) to the winnerof the Venezuelan soap-box derby.
A llnscbnll and vollejiballcoach 1s (bang brought f r o m
the Uniced States to ~mprove Venezuelan culture. Other
projects includebulldlng
a swimming pool in a poor
district anld - a strange interlude - (helping destitute
AmericFns in Venezuela to keepthemfrombecoming
embarrassing public charges.
Amidthese good works, practicalconslderations are
notforgotten.Mr.
Dudman saysratherbluntly
that
6
the movementsrealmotiveseems
t o be t o protect
private property against expropriation and against additionaltaxationand
la,bor ICgislatlon. HOWfamiliar!
Also, the businessmen prefer dictators: . . distrust of
democlacy as applied to Latin Ammerica is a beli\ef t h a t
runs strong through Amerkan business communities
in
these countries. There is reason for thls. The Cerro de
PascoCompany, for one, is involved in bloodyfights
wlth Indian squatters
who claimi the companysbig
haciendas by right of traditional inheritance. Under a
dictator the Indians would be better bebaved.
One American businessman(inPeru)
says heand
his colleagues In LatinAmerlcaarecombatting
communism in a subtleanddiplomaticway.
It would
seem so.
pate

111

education and
culture,

Africa for the Africans?

Afrjca for theAfricans, llke most demagogic slogans,
is as misleading as i t is clangerous. From Tananarive,
Tshombe, Ileo (Kasavubug stand-in) and Kalonji have,
in effect, decided t o carveuptheCongointoprivate
preserves very much in the manner that Europeans once
carved up Central Africa. Their Lanti-Cbmmun~st
coalition is more an iqstrument of concealedcolonialism
than of Congolese nationallsm. Russell Howe, rePorting
fro& Leopoldville to the Washington
Po.rt; offers some

226

illuminating details, T h e forces thatdrovethe

U.N.
from Matadi wereunder thc dlrec8tlon of Belgian officers.Backingthem
w a b the partlyBelgia~~-officerecl
Thysvdle
garrison.
The cease-fire negotiatlons were
handled on the Congoleseside by a m n g Premler Leon
Delvaux, a lnulattopolitman who 1s regarded i n the
Congo as "Belgium's main spoke~rnan.~
Belgran interests stdl control the three Leopoldvdle newspapers
aqd,
accordmg to Howe, are
r t s m g them for ? wrulent ?nd
irresponsible campaign against Ithe U.N.
B u t moreimportant,thejnv~siblefinancial
controls
arc st111 III Belgian hnnrls. P r e s d c n t N k r u m d l of Ghana,
i n a l~ttle-not~cedseotmn of -his speech I n theGeneral
Assembly on March 7, called attention t o the fact that
t h c Rclglan NatiohaI Bank b y "agreement" dictatcs the
p o l ~ yof the Central Bank o f the Congo. Advances by
the Central Bank in order .to pay Mobutus men could
nothave beenobtained
without theapproval of the
Belgian National Bank. AndMobutu succeededlargely
because Lumumlba was unable to p a y the soldiers or to
m e e t public
expenditures.
A,t independence,
the
publlc
debt of t h e Congo totaledroughly f350,000,000 ( t h e
greater part of this debt had been incurred, mcldentdly,
in rhe development of Katmga, adeveloprnen,t which
h a d lrnmensely benefited Uaion Mmiere and other mm1ng and ~ n d ~ ~ s tinterests),
~iai
while the asse,ts totaled
about f240,000,000.B u t theseassetswerelargelysituated in Katanga and include a large holding
In Unlon
M~niere.
Againstthisbackground,
if KasavubuandKalonji
pool t h e i r m i l i t ~ r y forces withthepredominantly
private army of Katanga, Tshombe will be calling t h e ttune.
Katanga is the real center
of poyer; behind Tshomlbe
are the massive taxes from his Belgian m+hg patrons.
Gizynga,
meanwhde,
is blockaded
from
'exporting reponalagriculturalproducts do-711 the Congo. Even so,
r n thelongrun,the
anti-Communist(concealed
colonial) coaht~onIS not likely t o p r e v a ~ las long as the
nationalist forces look toGlzenga for leadership. T h e
U.N. now has a chance to reverseitsinitialerrors
by
a firm handling of the Congolese Quislings. B u t will i t ?

1
,

The Issue, Mr. Speaker ,

A daybeforethe
House of Representativesvoted,
412 to 6, an increased appropriation for the Committee

on Un-AmericanActivities, the Supreme Court divided

5-to-4 JJI the
Braden
and
Wilkinson
cases. If the
eloquent d~ssentof Justice Black had been the majority
opinion,the Court would in effect have abo1ished the
HUAC. Yetthe
impression prevails *hat since t h e
HUAC received the nearly unanimous approval of the
Congress, it must enjoy the nearly unanimous approval
of the natidn. The Supreme Court is-nut, of course, an
elected body, and divisions in it do not necessarily reflect na~ional divisions; nevertheless, the San Francisco

The

NATioN
f

CILrotlicle hazards the opinion that this time tlac Co,urt

<c
seems to minor the split in the country.
By any reckoning, the Courts division on the issue
is a more accurate mirror of national opinion than the
vate 111 Congress. Reports from close observers confirm
the view that a hundredormorevotes
would have
becnregisteredagainst
theappropriation
if a secret
ballot had been used. It is a matter of serious concern
when members of Congress ail t o vote thelr convictions on an issue of thisImportance. T h e remedy, of
course,is for cltizens who favor albolition to concentrate
t l m r attention o n Congressmenwhomighthave
been
espected to vote against the appropriation, but did not.
W h a t IS i t about pulbllc office, inqulres t,he Madison
Capital Tiwzsr,thatmakesmen
so timid?Where were
Representatllves Reuss, Johnlson and Zablocki? (liberal
members of the Wisconsm delegation who faded
to join
their colleague, Rep. Robert Kastenmeier, 111 opposition
to the appropriation). This is the right question to ask.
The time has come to call the roll on those members
of Congress who, 111 conversationandcorrespondence,
over teacups and cocl&l gbasses, agree t!lIat the HUAC
should bc abolished and then falil t o vote their convictlons. This years bestspeech in the,HUACdebate
was delivered by Rep. Thomas Ashley (D.) o f Ohio:

Base,.but to close it up entirely i n accordance with a

general disarmame~ltplan? What would hundreds of
othercommunities,equallydependentfortheir
economies on neanby
military
installations,
do in like
circumstances? And does nor the fear of such energetic
protest, sweeping theMainStreets
of thecountry,
dampen the enthuslasnl oi polltical leaders for the idea
of disarmament?

Maybe It Wont Work

- Make It Anyway

Im a little confuse,d by what I readin the papers

albout the Nike-Zeus progralm, compplained chairman
Overton Brooks of the House Space Committee. He is
not tlhe only one in this condition; this
matter of NlikeZeus will proba:blybecome as chronlic under the Kennedy Admlnistratlon as i t was under Eisenhower. NikeZeus is the weaponwhich theArmy relles on to knock
oncoming Soviet missiles out of the American sky. AIthoughhe is not as frank about it, Defense Secretary
Rolbert S. McNamara must beconfused, too. Richard
S. Morse, his Assistant Secretary of t h e Army for Research and Development, wishes
to put the anti-missile
missile, into irnlnedialte production. Hedbert F. York, the
Eisenhower Defense Delpartment research and engineeringdirectorwhom
the KennedyAdministration
has
All of LIS are keenly aware that the forces of cornretained pro tern, ils opposed. H e doesnt think Nilre~ n u n i s ~are
n unswervinglydedlcated t o tlle destruction of
Zeus w ~ lwork.
l
Many engineers share this view. But this
this and, o t h e r free nations. . . . But surely we are aware,
is not -the point at all. Nke-Zeus must be made, whether
,
too, that communism IS not the only threat to our liberty.
it works or not.
The Individual freedoms guaranteed in the Bill of Rlghts
The gentllemcn who f,ind themselves confused could
can be lost or diluted through our own action or ~II?C~IOII,
obtain considel-dnble claritfication fromJerry
Greenes
and if thls 1s allowed to happen by our own hand:, the loss
article,
Munitions:
A
Way
o
Llife,
in
the
March
4
of liberty is no less than if imposed by an alien adversary.
Natio,n..
Greene
is
the
military
editor
of
the
New
York
Are we ready and willmg t o defcnd our individual
Daily Nezu.os andsornethmg of a connoisseur of N i b
freedoms 111 the House of Representatives as wc are on the
Zeus. So far,Zeus has been flired only 140 miles, but
battlefield? I believe this is the issue, Mr. Speaker.
everything else is t o be skipped and it is t o be put into
production.
As Greene says, the Army is screaming for
Circus ia Rome, N. Y.
it, Zeus behg the Ainlys only base in the high-class
missiles fielsd. The Armys contractorsarescreaming
The
city
of Rome, N.Y., population 51,000, almost
wentintoapanicrecentlywhenthe
federal governeven louder [see art& on page 235 1. .Few bettors would
ment announced it might m w e part of thenearby
care to wager that even olle ICBM would everbe
Grif4iss Air Force Base to allother state. T h e nmve
downed by a Z e u s d u t ,we must go iuto productiori a 3
would mean a loss of 6,000 Iocal jolbs.
if Zeus were a finis!Ied and proved product.
Community reaction was swift: An empty store was
T h e attitude of thc newspapers and news weeklies is
opened so t h a t peoplecouldsendtelegralns
of protest
inLeresting. Most of them are well informedenough t o
for $1.21, charged to your
recognize a public relations buildup when they see one.
toPresidentKennedy:
The buildup 111 this case is peculiarIy flagrant, but the
phone bill. More than 1,000 telegrainsweresent
the
pressprintseverythingwith
a straight face. It is as
New York Congressiolaal
first day. Nearlytheentire
if t11c entlre cognizant scientlhic and engineering corndelegationdescended upon high Pentagon officials to
lnullity stood b e h i d Zeus, almost t o a man. If anyphing
dehver a separate
protest.
A citizens group flew to
wereneeded to convince the public that the objective
Washington to make their personal protestatthe
of mtbe defehse program is n o t defense alone, hut prolit,
Pentagon. GovernorRockeieIler
issued strongstatethe Zeus programwould
fit Lhc bill. But t h e pubments decrying the move.
lic will never know it, for the press wont tell. TVit!1 a
Questions: What would Rome, N.Y., do if the. plan
few !lonorable excepptlions, it is a partner in the selling j.o:b.
of Griffiss Air Farce
was not merely to movepart

h/barch 18, IPdI

.....

222