I am reading When The World Calls: The Inside Story of The Peace Corps and Its First Fifty Years by Stanley Meisler. I have 25 days till staging, not that I'm counting, and need a break from the do-it-yourself Spanish, the ESL reading, the books on Nicaraguan history and culture. Meisler's first chapter brings it all back, the germ of an idea Kennedy borrowed from others, notably Hubert Humphrey, and just mentioned at an impromptu talk to students at the University of Michigan, but which became articulated as a full blown policy initiative in a speech he gave at the Cow Palace in San Franciso on November 2, 1960. That speech is a major reason I'm waiting out my 25 days. Here's the story:
In the summer of 1960, I was a fifteen year old student at a Catholic high school in San Francisco. The Democaratic National Convention that year consumed my mother and me. She was the daughter of Irish immigrants who settled in Boston and she remembered the days when "Irish need not apply" for good jobs in her home city. John Kennedy and his nomination validated her, and more than that, thrilled her, and I caught her enthusiasm. We watched the convention late at night on our flickering black and white TV, late because of the time difference in California, late because the balloting went on and on, quite different from the way it is today, and the outcome was close and in doubt to the very end. When Kennedy got the nod, the wild jubilation on the small screen was mirrored there in our living room where my Mom and I hugged and jumped up and down. That nomination so moved me that the first chance I got I went to Democratic Party headquarters and volunteered.
I was assigned to the Youth for Kennedy group. We mainly stuffed envelopes. When school started, I kept up the volunteer work. All those volunteer hours paid off, because when Kennedy was due in San Francisco on November 2, a Tuesday one week before the election (and the day before my 16th birthday), I was asked to come along for the day with the group from headquarters. My job was to give out material to the press corps. I met Kennedy at the airport, literally met him, shook hands and then disappeared to provide the tired and cynical reporters with copies of the speech Kennedy would deliver that night.
We followed him around the city in the press buses as he gave one talk after another. I remember being impressed that he said the same things wherever he went--my first experience with the stump speech. The last stop was the Cow Palace. I was ushered in with the press to a section right below the lectern. I heard him announce the Peace Corps as a major policy initiative. I still have a yellowed copy of the speech. He began by promising arms reduction. He criticized the preparation of foreign service officers, the vast majority of whom had no language skills for the counties in which they served He then propose a "peace corps" (lower case in the original).
"...This would be a volunteer corps--and volunteers would be sought among talented young women as well--and from every race and walk of life. For this nation is full of young people eager to serve the cause of peace in the most useful way. I have met them on campaigns across the country. When I suggested at the University of Michigan lately that we need young men and women to give up a few years to serve their county in this fashion, the students proposed a new organization to promote such an effort. Others have indicated a similar response -- offering a tremendous pool that could work modern miracles for peace in dozens of under-developed nations...."
I was transfixed. I wanted to be one of those idealistic young volunteers. It's hard to believe now how positive the world felt in those few years at the beginning of the 60's before Vietnam and Watergate. Social progress seemed so possible as colonial powers lost their grip in the face of the struggles for independence and the American civil rights movement grew.
It took me some time to volunteer, but now, after a 50 year delay, there are only 25 days to go.
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