A complete and revealing history of the
Peace Corps - in time for its fiftieth anniversary.
Since its inauguration, the Peace Corps
has been an American emblem for world peace and friendship. Across the
nation, there are 200,000 former volunteers, with alumni including
members of Congress and ambassadors, novelists and university
presidents, television commentators and journalists. Yet few Americans
realize that through the past nine presidential administrations, the
Peace Corps has sometimes tilted its agenda to meet the demands of the
White House. Stanley Meisler discloses, for instance, how Lyndon Johnson
became furious when volunteers opposed his invasion of the Dominican
Republic; he reveals how Richard Nixon literally tried to destroy the
Peace Corps, and he shows how Ronald Reagan endeavored to make it an
instrument of foreign policy in Central America. But somehow the ethos
of the Peace Corps endured.
In the early years, Meisler was deputy
director of the Peace Corps' Office of Evaluation and Research - and his
unswerving commitment to write an unauthorized and balanced history
results in a nuanced portrait of one of our most valued, and complex,
institutions.
"A rare example of a gripping institutional history."
- Kirkus Reviews
"Drawing on his experience and interviews with former volunteers,
[Stanley Meisler] presents the fascinating characters, locales, and
political background noise from a near-universally admired program’s
50-year history."
- Vanessa Bush,
Booklist
"This is a wonderful portrait of the Peace Corps, its tangled history,
its people and its mission. It is a timely reminder of how it is
possible to bring hope and change to the world. Stanley Meisler - a
distinguished foreign correspondent - is just the man to tell this
story."
-
Paul Theroux
"Stanley Meisler is
a gifted writer — and one who knows the Peace Corps well, both from his
work there in the early years and his decades as a foreign
correspondent. This book is full of insights and great anecdotes. It is
wonderful history, wonderfully told."
-
James Mann, author-in-residence,
Johns Hopkins University School of Advanced International Studies and
author of
Rise Of The Vulcans: The History of Bush's War Cabinet
"Stanley Meisler delivers an enlightened and engaging
narrative of President Kennedy’s 'most enduring legacy' — the Peace Corps.
With humor and an historian’s eye for telling detail, he carries us
through this remarkable organization’s fifty years of history and leaves
us convinced that 200,000 volunteers really did make a difference in the
world."
- David Lamb, long-time Los Angeles Times foreign
correspondent and author of
Vietnam, Now: A Reporter Returns
"This is a major development in the story of the Peace
Corps. It is a history that has been written by a talented writer who
knows the agency from the inside and from the early days, and a
journalist who has observed PCVs at work around the world."
-
John Coyne,
Peace Corps Writers
"The Peace Corps has always been poorly understood by
Americans, and even its volunteers rarely know much about the agency's
founding and development. When the World Calls is an instructive,
thorough and fascinating history."
- Peter Hessler, New Yorker staff
writer, journalist, and author of River Town: Two Years on the Yangtze
"A thoughtful,
balanced story of a program that captured the spirit of America. My
Peace Corps service defined me and thousands of others who had the
privilege of serving." -
Donna E. Shalala, president,
University of Miami, and former secretary of Health and Human
Services
"Meisler's affection
for the agency permeates every chapter. But he does not ignore
criticisms and failures, making for a balanced, satisfying institutional
history." - Steve Weinberg,
San Francisco Chronicle
True to the Peace Corps by Stanley Meisler The corps' celebrity and size may have diminished, but its longevity is a
testament to its importance. In some ways, the Peace Corps, which celebrates its 50th anniversary
Tuesday, is a shadow of what it once was. It had so much pizzazz in the early
days that newspapers proclaimed the names of new volunteers as if they had just
won Guggenheim fellowships. Now, the number of volunteers — 8,655 — is about
half of what it was at its highest in 1966, and not everyone knows the Peace
Corps still exists. The first director — the irrepressible, inspiring Sargent
Shriver, who put the program together in six months — made the cover of Time in
1963. The current director — Aaron Williams, a former volunteer with decades of
experience in international development — barely gets his name in the papers. At
a panel discussion at George Washington University a couple of years ago,
Christiane Amanpour, then chief foreign correspondent of CNN, listed factors
that had contributed to American worldwide popularity in the past. "There was a
Peace Corps," she said. Yet the Peace Corps, despite its loss of celebrity and
size, has improved a great deal during its 50 years... LOS ANGELES TIMES OP-ED COMMENTARY
February 25, 2011
Sarge's Peace Corps(related commentary by Stanley Meisler) January 20, 2011
The family joke was that President John F. Kennedy handed his brother-in-law,
Sargent Shriver, a lemon and Shriver turned it into lemonade. The lemon was the
new Peace Corps, and Shriver, who died on Tuesday just six weeks short of the 50th
anniversary of the Peace Corps, transformed that lemon in 1961 into the most
dynamic, popular and exciting agency of the new administration. The success of
the Peace Corps made Shriver a national celebrity...
Celebrate 50 Years of the Peace Corps at HUD
U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development Thursday, May 19, 2011 4:00PM - 6:00 PM
The Returned Peace Corps Volunteers of HUD welcome journalist Stanley
Meisler, a renowned Los Angeles Times foreign and diplomatic
correspondent, prolific author and world traveler who worked as Peace
Corps’ Deputy Director of Research and Evaluation in the 1960s under
Sargent Shriver. Mr. Meisler recently published a book entitled When The
World Calls: The Inside Story Of The Peace Corps And Its First Fifty
Years.
We invite you to come discuss the creation and first 50 years of the
Peace Corps with someone who lived through it. Refreshments will be
served.
All non-federal employees, please RSVP to sarah.a.stewart@hud.gov by May
17. Location: Brooke-Mondale Auditorium
HUD Headquarters (corner of D and 7th St., S.W./ L’Enfant Plaza metro)
451 7th Street S.W.
Washington, DC 20410
U.S.A.
John F. Kennedy Presidential Library Forum 50th Anniversary of the Peace Corps
Thursday, March 3, 2011
5:30 PM - 7:00 PM Former Peace Corps volunteers Sarah Chayes, Chris Dodd, Elaine
Jones, Joe Kennedy III and Paul Theroux share their memories of
serving and how their experiences changed their lives.
Stanley Meisler, author of When the World Calls: The Inside
Story of the Peace Corps and Its First Fifty Years, moderates. Location:
The John F. Kennedy Presidential Library and Museum
Columbia Point
Boston, MA 02125
U.S.A.
Politics & Prose Bookstore & Coffeehouse Stanley Meisler - When The World CallsSunday, February 27th, 2011
5:00 - 6:00 PM
A journalist for the Los Angeles Times, author of a biography of
Kofi Annan, and former deputy director of the Peace Corps Office of
Evaluation and Research, Stanley Meisler marks the50th year of the Corps with a history of its work. Based on his own
experience and those of the many former volunteers he interviewed,
Meisler contrasts the organization’s ideals with the political
realities, both domestic and foreign, that have affected its
mission. Location:
5015 Connecticut Ave NW
Washington DC 20008
U.S.A.
History of the Peace Corps: From the Michigan Union Steps to the Present
University of Michigan - October 15, 2010
1:00 - 2:30 p.m. Hatcher Library Hear an eyewitness account of JFK’s speech and the campus events
that followed leading to the creation of the Peace Corps, and then hear
about the growth and development of the Peace Corps over the past fifty
years. Co-presenters are Alan Guskin (U-M alumnus and RPCV-Thailand),
Jody K. Olsen (former Deputy Director of the Peace Corps, RPCV and
Visiting Professor at the U. of Maryland), and Stanley Meisler (former
Peace Corps staff member and author of When the World Calls: The Inside
Story of the Peace Corps and Its First Fifty Years). The panel
moderator will be Carrie Hessler-Radelet, Deputy Director, Peace Corps.
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