debunking the peace corps myth

8/3/2019 Debunking the Peace Corps Myth

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Debunking the Peace Corps Myth

Introduction

In recent years, the Peace Corps has received some very harsh criticism.In 2002, a General Accounting Office report raised concerns over the safety and security

of Peace Corps Volunteers. Scathing criticism came from a series of Dayton Daily News articlesin 2003, depicting an agency which ostracized Volunteer victims of violence, suppressednegative publicity, and behaved very shadily while maintaining a good public image. Over the next few years the Peace Corps took up the political mantra, The safety and security of volunteers is our number one priority. This type of criticism of the Peace Corps seemed to be anew thing. Will Dickinson, creator of PeaceCorpsWiki.org, said of the articles, No one had ever done anything like that before. After that the agency became much more secretive. Over thenext several years, the Peace Corps agency would retreat further into itself, behind a politicalcampaign that obfuscated its failings and promoted its mythic image.

In 2007, Senator Chris Dodd introduced the Peace Corps Volunteer Empowerment Act,legislation designed to modernize the agency, empower Volunteers, give them whistle blower rights, enable them to participate in the reviews of staff performance, give them funding for their projects, and allow them to work in partnership with the agency. At a hearing on the bill, Senator Dodd invited two serving Volunteers, Chuck Ludlam and Paula Hirschoff, to appear to representthe point of view of Volunteers. The Peace Corps vehemently opposed the bill and it died atthe end of the Congress in 2008. Robert Strauss published an article in 2008 which harshlycriticized the agency, saying the organization did not function effectively as a developmentagency, or any other kind of agency for that matter. In Peasants Come Last by Larry Brown, arecently published book by a Peace Corps Country Director, we see a visceral picture painted of a seriously mismanaged agency, and the consequences of this dysfunction.

The public first took notice of some serious problems in the Peace Corps at thebeginning of 2011, right at the beginning of the institutions 50th anniversary year. ABC Newsran a 20/20 special which revealed a shocking scandal. In 2009, a Peace Corps Volunteer whistle blower, Kate Puzey, had been murdered when she accused a Peace Corps staff member of raping his students. Though she had begged for anonymity from Peace Corpsheadquarters, her identity had been revealed to the accused staff member, and he and hisbrother went to Kates village and murdered her.The Peace Corps attempted to keep the wholething under wraps to avoid bad publicity; Peace Corps staff murdering Volunteers when theyblow the whistle does not reflect well on the agency. Indeed, in 2007-2008 the Peace Corpshad killed the Dodd bill, which would have given Kate whistle blower protections, includingconfidentiality. In 2009 Senator Dodd had explicitely requested that the Peace Corps assessthe need for whistle blower protections for Volunteers and it refused to do so. Then in mid-2009, Chuck Ludlam and Paula Hirschoff published a comprehensive Peace Corps reform plan,highlighting the criticisms of the agency found in the agencys own surveys of the Volunteers,shockingly high early quit rates, the agencys First Goad grassroots development failures, andmany other scandals and inefficiencies.

Over the past decade, the agencys response to criticism and calls for reform has beento ostracize critics and further entrench itself behind its mythologized reputation. Ties aresevered, and discussions are shut down before they can begin. A small number of ReturnedVolunteers have been pushing for transparency and reform for several years, but the PeaceCorps has been consistently stonewalling reform, belittling them, and blackballing them. Thisleads some proponents of reform to conclude the only option remaining is for Volunteers topress for reform themselves.


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Understanding the Myth

It is difficult to criticize the Peace Corps given that it has become an American icon of

mythic status. A certain subculture of the Peace Corps community consistently characterizescritics as attackers no matter how constructive their critiques.The Peace Corps is perfect,divinely conceived by the martyred President John Kennedy, and anyone who dares tochallenge this myth is viewed as a threat.

This presents a serious obstacle to honest and constructive criticism of the PeaceCorps, whose zealous defenders denounce all criticism as purely destructive and blasphemous.When their backs are against the wall, as has happened a couple of times when their failingscame under public scrutiny, they will admit they are wrong. Then they push criticism under therug and go back to promoting the myth.

Strauss said in his Foreign Policy article, To become effective and relevant, thePeace Corps must now give up on the myth that its creation was the result of an immaculateconception that can never be questioned or altered. This myth is the political currency of thePeace Corps community. Its section of the international development economy revolves aroundthis myth. Understanding how the agency uses its iconic reputation is key to understanding theagencys mentality and its secretive and defensive behavior.

In When the World Calls , Stanley Meisler paints a picture of an energetic Shriver focused on expansion in the first years of the program. Meisler quotes an early evaluator -- a

job no longer existing in the agency -- as saying of Shriver, He rightly understood the principlethat if you dont grow, you go downhill, and added that the evaluators were against stupidexpansion, and there was a lot of it going on. Unfortunately that quantitative focus has notchanged since then. The agencys campaign rests on the mistaken notion that the Peace Corpsis already perfect.

In his well-researched book, Meisler paints a thorough picture of the first 50 years.The Peace Corps has had its ups and downs, and has received praise as well as criticism.This contrasts with the one-sided dream portrayed by the Peace Corps. The agency and its

defenders actively promote the Peace Corps as the golden standard of Volunteerism, shunningall criticism as heretical, and clinging voraciously to the mythic image as though it were reality.In investigating this phenomenon, it would help to consider why this situation may have comeabout in the first place.

Meisler notes how Kennedys death affected the Peace Corps:

The Peace Corps, of course, did not die with John F. Kennedy. But theassassination would affect the Peace Corps in significant ways. First of all, the emotionalanguish that raged for weeks, even months, would make Americans embrace all thingsthat bore the stamp of their beloved and martyred president. Nothing bore that stampmore than the Peace Corps.

Shriver moved on from the Peace Corps to work for the program War on Poverty, andthe volunteer program has since been mythologized, iconized, and idolized. The focus hasalways been on quantitative growth, and promoting this idealistic myth.

This iconic reputation has since taken on a life of its own, a picture completely divorcedfrom reality, of an agency and program which is sacrosanct and can do no wrong. All thewhile, the agency hides its consistently dubious behavior. A subculture within the Peace Corpscommunity seems to actually believe this one-sided picture, which it promotes almost like apolitical or religious doctrine.

The reputation of the Peace Corps is its only political tool, since it can generate no


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measurable impact without using obfuscating and misleading statistics. The Peace Corpsgolden stamp is a valuable career-building tool in the international development and aidcommunity. Combine that with an agency that will blacklist and suppress you if you expressany criticism about them, and there is little incentive for anyone to stand up to them, criticize, or press for reform.

The agency has come to be dominated by a secretive, self-centered culture, whichleeches off the mythic reputation, while irresponsibly shirking its duties as a development andcultural exchange agency. Now the volunteer program is, as Strauss points out, schizophrenic.He calls it a Peter Pan organization that does not know what it is supposed to be, or howto fulfill its mission. It does not know if it is a development program or a cultural exchangeprogram, so it has become neither.

Strauss says in order to make progress, the agency needs to give up its myth for arealistic picture of the world. The current operating model is based around the propagation of this myth, so it appears this is the one thing they will not give up.

The Peace Corps Experience

The Peace Corps transforms lives, and to say that a positive Volunteer experience ismeaningful is often an understatement. Many Returned Volunteers say that their Volunteer service changed their lives and became part of their identity. Many say it is the most importantthing they ever did, PeaceCorpsWiki.orgs Will Dickinson said. The Peace Corps has hadheaps of praise since it began, and plasters this praise everywhere for everyone to see. Thesepositive experiences are the fuel for the myth.

A negative experience, however, can have the opposite effect. In recent years a number of stories have been emerging of Returned Volunteers which paints a different side of the PeaceCorps. The agency has been accused of neglect that has caused illness, injury, and death.Instead of being supported by the agency, victims of violence, sexual assault, and illness getblamed and ostracized from the Peace Corps community. And instead of taking responsibilityfor its actions, the agency continues to blame the victims and spout its one-sided politicalrhetoric about the Peace Corps being the gold standard for volunteerism.

Debased, demeaned, and blamed, Volunteers are left dehumanized, hurt, and confusedby a numbers-focused agency. The agencys culture of blaming Volunteers takes its toll on anyVolunteers who cause problems for the agency. The rebound process for Volunteers is often apainful catharsis.

Larry Brown wrote his book, Peasants Come Last , as his cathartic process, he says.Will Dickinson of PeaceCorpsWiki.org built the wiki site as his catharsis. He built it for anagency with no institutional memory, but the Peace Corps made it clear it had little interest intransparency, and chose to maintain is opaque campaign of silence. I went three years thinkingI was doing something wrong, that these people were good. But the reality was that I wasntplaying the political game that was demanded in Washington. Dickinson said he has privatelyheard other deeply personal stories illustrating sad consequences of the agencys abusiveculture.

Instead of supporting Volunteers who are victims of crime or service-related illness,the agency castigates and blacklists victims who have now become threats to its image. Thisbizarre hostility seems to stem from self-denial of those who either believe the Peace Corpsmyth or at least recognize the myths value as a political tool, at the expense of all else. Aculture of blaming leaves Volunteers in various states of confusion and hurt. Active maintenanceof a culture of silence and the suppression of criticism beneath the banner of the myth alsoprevents Volunteers from speaking out. All this can go on behind closed doors, as it were, solong as the Peace Corps community maintains the myth at the expense of Volunteer victims,quality programming, and the communities who need the help of the Peace Corps.


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Disturbing Patterns Emerge

The body of literature critical of the Peace Corps is tiny, but compelling.The first real criticism of the Peace Corps in mainstream media came from the Dayton

Daily News in 2003. The seven-part series of articles revealed a disturbing negative trend inPeace Corps behavior toward crime victims and Volunteers who get ill during service. Lack of support, according to one Volunteer, caused her to lose her right eye. Murders were kept quiet.Victims were blamed and ostracized. Agency mismanagement was repeatedly implicated. Theseries revealed conscious misrepresentation and manipulation of data. It would be one of manytimes the Peace Corps would stonewall and resist acquisition of its documentation through theFreedom of Information Act.

Following a year behind the 2002 GAO Report citing safety concerns for Volunteers,this type of criticism had the agency touting its prioritization of safety and security for yearsafterward. Indeed, structural changes were made to enhance the safety and security of theVolunteers, but this did not stop the agency from trying to downplay and even manipulatestatistics regarding the safety concerns. Manipulation of statistics was not new to the PeaceCorps, and it has not changed to this day.

The Early Termination Rate, for example, appears to be the bane of the agencysexistence. It has been trying to obfuscate and misrepresent this number for at least the pastdecade. This number is the percent of Volunteers who do not complete their full service term,for one of four reasons: administrative separation (when a Volunteer gets fired), medicalseparation due to illness, resignation on the part of the Volunteer, or by an interruption inservice beyond anyones control. This number has been at around a third or more for theagencys whole history, meaning one out of three Volunteers do not complete their service.

In the early 2000s, the Early Termination Rate always calculated appropriatelyas a cohort rate -- was replaced by a calculation of the Annual Rate of early terminations, whichdoes not measure the percentage of Volunteers who complete their two years of service.Rather, the Annual Rate calculates the percentage of all of the Volunteers who serve even oneday in a given calendar year who terminate their service in that year. The advantage of the

annual rate is that the ET Rate drops from 35% -- the cohort rate to less than 10%. ThePeace Corps has touted the lower rate because it does not imply that the Peace Corps iswasting 35% of its budget and suffering a widespread collapses of morale. Mike Shepphard is aco-founder of Developmentary, Inc., the non-profit which owns PeaceCorpsWiki.org andPeaceCorpsJournals.com. He wrote a report detailing the difference between the twomeasurements.

When the Early Termination rate quietly changed into the Annual Early TerminationRate, the fraction of early terminators suddenly seemed to drop. The Peace Corps hadchanged the way it calculated this statistic, a calculation method it had been asked to use bythe GAO in 1981. Instead of representing the percent of Volunteers who fail to complete their full term, this percent took the number of dropouts and put that number over all Volunteerswho had been active that year, including incoming, outgoing, and short-term Volunteers. This

much smaller percent obfuscated the earlier performance indicator, the Early Termination rate,considered by many to be an accurate metric of program performance.In 2009 Chuck Ludlam filed a FOIA request to the Peace Corps for any documents that

explained why the Peace Corps had switched from the cohort to the annual rate in calculatingET rates. It said that no documents existed to explain the switch a clear indication of acoverup. The timing of the change explains why the change was made; the Peace Corps wasunder pressure from the Office of Management and Budget to file performance and resultsreports together with metrics of its success. The Peace Corps had to find a way to cover up the35% ET rates, an embarrassing and expensive scandal.


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In 2004, an Inspector General memo to Director Vasquez named quality programmingas the number one challenge and priority for the Peace Corps. It read, lack of meaningfulwork is closely linked to early termination, travel out of site, feelings of isolation, and riskybehavior. These, in turn, were linked to incidents of violence. Vasquez -- a Director whose ownquestionable appointment had caused divisions within the Returned Volunteer Community --rebuffed the Inspector Generals concerns with the Peace Corps usual tactic to official criticism:dont worry, were already making progress. He downplayed the connection between qualityprogramming and the Early Termination rate.

The Peace Corps would later completely obfuscate the Early Termination rate issuein its 2010 Comprehensive Agency Assessment. This report would be their plan for reformingagency operations, written at the request of Congress.

In an extended section on the Early Termination Rate, the report tries to legitimizethe calculation method of the Annual Rate, then goes on to downplay that number as beingunimportant. It says Volunteers usually resign for personal reasons, and besides, the PeaceCorps only wants to concern itself with controllable reasons for Early Termination, namely,those who resign. This is problematic. It assumes that the agency could not possibly be at faultwhen it terminates a Volunteers service. It assumes medical separation is always out of theagencys control. This gives the agency tremendous leeway when presenting these statistics,and virtually no oversight when it chooses to terminate a Volunteers service or medicallyseparate them.

Instead of using even the resignation rate as an agency performance indicator,though, the Peace Corps would like to measure the average length of service. This metricsubsequently replaced the already-misleading Annual Rate as a performance indicator,completely obscuring the concept of Early Termination. The report also stated that 25% of Early Terminations occur within the first three months, during training, but since the traineeswere not officially sworn in as Volunteers, the agency would like to begin measuring the EarlyTermination rates after the first three months of training. Measuring after this time precludes thepossibility that the 25% of Volunteers who leave during training do so for agency-controllablereasons, such as immediately evident programming quality, training quality, or other concernsevident during in-country training.

These critical concerns get brushed under the rug in this reform plan. The entire reportis weasel-worded obfuscation incarnate.

Congress had requested the self-assessment from the Peace Corps as part of apolitical struggle begun in 2007. Senator Chris Dodd introduced the Peace Corps Volunteer Empowerment Act on March 1, 2007 (S. 732). The legislation was a comprehensive reformplan which would have mandated into law multiple agency reforms. The focus and design of the legislation was Volunteer-empowerment. It envisioned a flattened Peace Corps, where theagency worked in partnership with the Volunteers.


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Testimonies: Peace Corps Volunteer Empowerment Act

Below are short summaries of the testimonies that took place on July 25, 2007, at thePeace Corps Volunteer Empowerment Act.

Chuck Ludlam and Paula Hirschoff

Ludlams testimony at the 2007 hearing was poignant and persuasive. The testimony isa hundred pages long, an obvious labor of love. The legislation and his testimony focused onreforming the Peace Corps through Volunteer empowerment. He felt that in order to reform, theagency needed to listen to, respect, and empower Peace Corps Volunteers.

The testimony focused on flattening the Peace Corps, which Ludlam saw as a self-centered, top-down, command-and-control-oriented bureaucracy. The Volunteers themselvesare not respected or supported. According to the testimony, many Volunteers in the fieldbelieve that they serve despite the Peace Corps bureaucracy.

Originally, he said, the Peace Corps was formed with the notion that we couldtrust young Americans with the task of making improvements in the developing world. TheVolunteers have not changed over the years, but the Peace Corps culture has. Instead of evolving in partnership with Volunteers, and instead of trusting and empowering the Volunteers,the agencys attitude has shifted to one of condescension, treating the Volunteers like slackersand adolescents needing strict rules and discipline.

The testimony listed numerous problems with the current state of the Peace Corpsprogram, as reported by the Volunteers themselves. The agency lacked a listening mechanismto ensure the Peace Corps staff listens respectfully to Volunteers in order to provide maximumsupport for the Volunteers. The agency lacked a mechanism that would allow the Volunteersto review the Peace Corps staff confidentially. Unsupportive staff were retained despiteample evidence of their poor performance. The medical screening process was unnecessarilyopaque and reduced the leverage of the Volunteers. The agency retained Country Directorsand Associate Peace Corps Directors who have no respect for Volunteers and did not supportthem. Instead of supporting them, Country Directors were retained who establish a climate of intimidation to stifle dissent. The Associate Peace Corps Directors failed to identify sources of seed funding for Volunteers to create demonstrations, the best method of teaching villagers anew idea.

Ludlam used the concept of a flat organization as presented in Thomas FriedmansThe World is Flat. Ludlam said, A flat organization is one that is organized horizontally, notvertically, and one that eschews the hierarchy that impedes collaboration, creativity, andindividual initiative. A flat organization thrives on listening, learning and adapting. It delegatesand empowers. The Peace Corps needed to be led from the bottom up by the Volunteers.

Prior to the creation of the legislation, the NPCA conducted a survey of 433 Volunteersasking their opinion of the legislations proposals. The respondents overwhelmingly supportedthe proposal, Ludlam said.

In order to develop a permanent mechanism that yields continuous renewal and

reform, his testimony suggested empowering Volunteers by allowing them to review their managers. The Peace Corps constantly reviewed Volunteers but provided no process wherethe Volunteers could review their managers. Such a process would have created incentive toperform better and provide more support to the Volunteers. Ludlam used RateMyTeacher.comas an example of such a mechanism; RateMyTeacher.com allows students from around theworld to review their middle school and high school teachers anonymously. A similar site couldprovide the same function for Peace Corps Volunteers.

The testimony emphasized the need for a culture of listening to Volunteers. Theculture of the Peace Corps should be a living example of the values, customs and behaviors


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as they express participatory democracy and service...where everyone shares the goal of hearing, respecting and supporting Volunteers in the field. In addition to an upward feedbackmechanism allowing Volunteers to rate their managers, the legislation would mandate a creationof a Volunteer Advisory Council for each country program.

It would also mandate the creation of websites and email addresses for Volunteers touse to communicate amongst themselves and with their managers. Ludlam went further andmade multiple suggestions for the Peace Corps to launch itself into the digital age, includingthe creation of a master website and country program websites. He felt a digital archive of Volunteer experiences was needed and said, The fact that the Peace Corps is not as digitizedas it should be leads to inefficiencies and alienation. If the Peace Corps were to digitize as itshould, this could enhance Congressional and Inspector General oversight and interaction withthe Volunteers.

The legislation had sections designed to encourage older and more experiencedVolunteers to enter the program and would require the Peace Corps to identify disincentives for older Volunteer candidates.

The opacity of the medical screening process was presented as a major disincentivefor all applicants. Apparently, the Peace Corps had guidelines around the medical screeningprocess which it did not publish or provide. Ludlam submitted a FOIA request for the guidelines,and it took the Peace Corps seven months to provide the guidelines, after which it charged him$360 to copy the electronic files. The first file he received was corrupted, so when he finally gota readable copy, PeaceCorpsOnLine published them.

The testimony continued:

Chuck published them reluctantly. When he had won the right to a copy of theguidelines, he invited the Peace Corps to publish them itself. He thought that thePeace Corps could explain the guidelines in its own words. He forwarded a copy of hisexplanation, which he said he would publish if the Peace Corps didnt publish its ownexplanation. It would not listen to this proposal and refused to publish the guidelines or to give Chuck edits or comments on his explanation. Thus, Chuck had the guidelinespublished along with his commentary.

His commentary in PeaceCorpsOnLine proposed an agenda of reforms of the medicalscreening process, not just a posting of the Guidelines. In April 2006 Congressionalstaff forwarded these medical screening reforms to the Peace Corps with a request for comments. The Peace Corps never responded to the inquiry.

Had the legislation been passed, it would have required the Peace Corps to publish

its Medical Screening Guidelines on the Internet and a detailed description of the medicalscreening process. It would have created a process by which amendments could be proposedto the Guidelines and would have allowed appeals based on the inadequacy of the Guidelines.There are several other reforms to the medical screening process the legislation would havemandated, all designed to increase the transparency of the medical screening process and

provide information and support to applicants. The NPCA survey conducted earlier that year showed that Volunteers overwhelmingly supported the legislations reforms.The legislation would have provided development funds to Volunteers to be used for

demonstrations. In the Developing World, a live demonstration is worth a million words andis, in fact, the best way -- often the only way -- to teach a new idea. In the Developing World,villagers dont have the economic leeway to take risks based on reports and data. They mustsee a project demonstrated before taking a risk on it. A family could go hungry or die if a newidea fails. Ludlam listed several demonstrations he and his wife funded, which would have beencovered by the legislations provision. The provision set a maximum seed fund of $1000 per


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Volunteer. The money would have been used specifically for demonstrations.A key part of the legislation would have protected whistle blower Volunteers in the same

way that Federal employees have been protected for more than 30 years. The legislation wouldhave clarified other Volunteer rights, so the Volunteers would know their rights and could assertthem.

Ludlams testimony argued that the Peace Corps regulations regarding leave and theout-of-site policies were inordinately restrictive. Violation of these strict policies such as themaximum number of leave days per month and maximum number of consecutive leave days,could result in Administrative Separation. These policies embody a lack of respect for theVolunteers. The regulations, he said, are a codification of the condescension toward Volunteersthat had been reported numerous times over recent years.

For years the Peace Corps had been trying to increase its numbers, promoting theslogan to double the number of Volunteers in the field. Ludlams testimony argued for asubstantial increase in the quality of the Volunteer support as a prerequisite to an increase inthe quantity of Volunteers.

Ludlams testimony proposed several additions to the legislation: an analysis of thesalary and benefits of Peace Corps managers to support retention of top talent, an annualsurvey of the Volunteers by Congress so Congress could know exactly how the Peace Corpswas functioning, a confidential survey of Volunteers who Early Terminated, a mandate thatwould prevent the Peace Corps from switching a Volunteers assigned program without their consent, allowed Volunteer use of the diplomatic pouch to ship personal items or valuables.Ludlam also proposed several improvements to medical support for Volunteers and severaltechnical amendments to the legislation.

The testimony concluded with his heartfelt gratitude for the Peace Corps and the impactit has made on his and his wifes life. Their experiences changed their lives for the better, and itwas also the reason they met.

With enactment of these reforms, we have a vision of the Peace Corps thriving for another 45 years, a Peace Corps where a culture of listening to, respecting andempowering the Volunteers prevails. In this vision Volunteers of all ages lend their

enthusiasm and resourcefulness to addressing the worlds development challenges,thereby promoting peace and understanding.

The testimony reveals Ludlams deep understanding of the Peace Corps ideals andmission, and an honest desire to enhance that mission through Volunteer empowerment.

Ronald Tschetters Testimony

The Peace Corps had other ideas, however.Ronald Tschetter was the Director of the Peace Corps at the time the legislation

was introduced, and his 16-page testimony vehemently opposed the bill. A number of thelegislations proposed reforms were conveniently already underway, a legislative tactic that had

been predicted in Ludlams testimony. The Peace Corps repeatedly used this tactic when facedwith criticism in official circles.He opened by saying the Peace Corps itself was in great shape, and that from his visits

to the Volunteers, he could see the Volunteers are happy and are fulfilled by the constructivework they are accomplishing. He cited that Volunteer service extensions were the highestthey had been in four years, which was a reflection of Volunteer satisfaction. Over 20 countrieswere requesting Peace Corps presence, a new program was opened in Cambodia, and theVolunteers were excelling in a number of project areas.

Several new initiatives had been unveiled in February: Strategic Recruitment and


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Outreach, Measuring Success and Impact, and Promoting Volunteerism. Tschetter believedthe Peace Corps should enhance its recruitment and outreach efforts to the 50+ population,Returned Peace Corps Volunteers, and other organizations. The Peace Corps was becomingbetter at partnering with other organizations, and would continue its efforts to increase diversityamong Volunteers.

Regarding the second initiative, Measuring Success and Impact, Tschetter said, Congress is always asking for better accountability, and we at the Peace Corps haveheard that call...the agency is looking to bolster its ability to capture our impact in moremeasurable terms. To meet this need, Tschetter created the Office of Strategic Information,Research, and Planning. This office would focus on performance planning and reporting,evaluation and measurement, and data management needs. The office would use a databaseto create global infrastructure and a seamless system for the agency.

To accomplish the third initiative, Tschetter said, I believe the Peace Corps is the goldstandard for volunteerism, and he created a Volunteerism Task Force to promote volunteerismin other countries. Countries such as Benin and Jordan had recently asked the Peace Corps for help in creating their own service corps.

Tschetter had the desire to keep the Peace Corps relevant to the 21st century, yet healso wanted to maintain the agencys flexibility in a changing world. He said the creators of thebill evidently believed parts of the Peace Corps were broken, but that was not the case. ThePeace Corps is actually thriving. He cited statistics that the majority of Volunteers found thework personally rewarding, that they would recommend it to others, and that they were meetingthe second goal of the Peace Corps, helping other cultures better understand Americans.

The bill would cause three main problems: 1) it would create unforeseen administrativeburdens and consequences; 2) raise significant safety and security concerns; and 3) wouldbe costly for the Peace Corps to implement. He said the bill would hamper the agencysadaptability, cause the agency to close programs, reduce Volunteer numbers, and becomelocked into initiatives without a proven track record.

If passed, the legislation would create serious safety and security concerns. Theagencys number one priority is the safety and security of our Volunteers, he said [underline inoriginal].

The reforms in the proposed legislation would be too expensive to carry out, and therewas no guarantee the Peace Corps would receive sufficient funds from Congress in the future.The Presidents budget request for the agency for Fiscal Year 2008 would certainly be too smallto carry out the legislations proposed programs.

Many elements of the proposed reforms were already underway. The Volunteer AdvisoryCouncil systems already exist, Tschetter said, and the vast majority of Volunteers are satisfiedwith the process. Mandating a council at each post could inhibit certain rules designed to keepthe Volunteers safe.

The bill would require that the Peace Corps fully reimburse Volunteers for the medicaltesting they undergo as part of the screening process. This would cost the agency upwardsof $10 million, vs. under $1 million the agency is currently spending. [bold & underline inoriginal]

Tschetter said that publishing the guidelines for the medical screening process would beconfusing for applicants, due to fluctuations in which countries that could accommodate whichmedical conditions. Different diseases could affect people differently; asthma, for example,could disqualify one person from service due to its severity but maybe not someone else. TheInspector General was currently conducting an evaluation of the medical screening process.

The legislations mandate of doubling the number of more experienced Volunteers wasalready underway, according to Tschetter. The legislation mandated the creation of a websitewith email addresses for the Volunteers, but the Peace Corps was already doing somethingsimilar, Tschetter said. These include a pilot program to enable each post to have its own


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website and an online program called Peace Wiki, which will allow Volunteers to share their best practices with other Volunteers around the world.

As for the seed funding provision, Tschetter argued that this would cause Volunteersto be viewed as a source of cash by the community, rather than help the community raise their own funds. A vehicle for fund-raising already exists, and raising funds outside of the existingmethods could cause legal problems, accountability issues, among other things. Volunteers arenot encouraged to give out money or be seen as a constant source of funds; nor are they areallowed to sell personal items for cash. Allowing Volunteers to either raise funds or use seedfunding for demonstration projects diminishes their primary objectives.

The legislation would allow Volunteers to write articles for publication without theCountry Directors prior approval, but this could cause adverse consequences and becomecause for administrative separation.

Part of the bill calls for 20 new sector-specific programs in 20 countries for experiencedVolunteers; this would create a heavy burden for staff, could reduce effectiveness of preexistingprograms, and the bills use of the term substantial work experience could cause legalproblems.

The bill also mandates that Volunteers can only be administratively separated for certainconduct violations in section 204 of the Peace Corps manual, which would mean Volunteerscould not be separated for poor performance, lying on the application, or leaving their sitewithout notifying their Country Director.

The Peace Corps takes Volunteer feedback very seriously, Tschetter said, bringing upthe biennial survey, a 50+ survey, and the Close of Service survey.

Tschetter said:

I would like to reiterate and re-emphasize that many aspects of S. 732 would be costlyfor the Peace Corps to implement; create unforeseen administrative burdens andconsequences; and raise significant safety and security concerns. Moreover, other aspects of the legislation are unnecessary because they are already being implemented,and still others could be accomplished administrativelywithout legislation.

He went on to reiterate his earlier point about Volunteer levels dropping if the legislationis enacted. He and his wife were grateful they had an opportunity to serve, and their PeaceCorps service impacted their lives greatly.

My promise to you is to work as hard as I possibly can to support our Volunteers, tostrengthen the systems and programs of the agency, and to ensure that the agencyspresence remains a benefit to the United States and to countries around the worldallwhile protecting its original mission and goals.


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Mark L. Schneider, former Director of the Peace Corps.

Mark supported the bill, and said the bill had three critical elements which would enablethe Peace Corps to double its size by March 1st, 2011, the 50th birthday of the Peace Corps.

Those elements are first, authorizing the necessary funds; second, empoweringVolunteers which will mean better management, improved programming and siteselection, safer and more satisfied Volunteers and third, removal of financial, medical,and bureaucratic obstacles to recruiting senior Volunteers.

The rest of his testimony just breaks down these points.

David Kotz, Inspector General

Kotzs position: It is my hope that the Committee remains committed to the issues

raised in the legislation and the continued improvements to the Peace Corps in the future.

Most of his testimony is devoted to his offices evaluation of the medical screeningprocess, to see if frustrations during the medical screening process acted as a barrier to servingin the Peace Corps. His investigation revealed that 82% of applicants who withdrew their application did so during the medical screening process. The top four reasons for applicationwithdrawals were all related to the medical screening process.

He went on to detail several problems with the medical screening process, he agreedthat posting medical screening guidelines online was a good idea, and that a list of typicallydisqualifying medical conditions should be provided to applicants. While he cautiously supporteddoubling, as long as program quality did not suffer, he strongly supported the whistle blower protection provision.

He supported giving Volunteers whistle blower rights and protections.

He applauded Senator Dodd for bringing this bill forward, but felt that with Congressssupport, legislative mandates may not be necessary.

Nicole Fiol, Peace Corps Nominee

She pointed out her financial difficulties with the medical screening process, and that thePeace Corps would only reimburse a portion of her tests.

She fully supported the bill. This bill will ensure that all volunteers and applicants likemyself get the resources they require to help those who are in great need of our services; whichis the foundation of freedom and condition of Peace.

Kevin Quigley, Director of NPCA

Kevin mentioned the survey the NPCA conducted and that overall the respondentssupported the bill.

Quigley supported the doubling of the Peace Corps, stating there were more than 20countries requesting Peace Corps presence, and three volunteers for every Volunteer position.The Peace Corps upcoming 50th anniversary could increase applications even more. Quigley


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supported increased funding for the Peace Corps third goal. Peace Corps service should be anational priority to help the USA become more trusted around the world.

In order to improve recruitment of minorities and the 50+ crowd, Quigley supported other aspects of the bill, such as transparency in the recruitment process and better reimbursementfor the medical screening costs.

Quigleys conclusion: As Chairman Dodd said in his statement introducing thislegislation, this will make make the Peace Corps even more relevant to the dynamic world of the 21st Century. And for that reason, we strongly support it.

The 20 Point Plan

The Peace Corps succeeded in defeating the Peace Corps Volunteer Empowerment Actas well as Dodds attempt in 2009 to enact the Peace Corps Improvement and Expansion Act, amuch watered-down version of the 2007 bill.

In 2009, Ludlam and Hirschoff sent an enormous memo to Peace Corps Director AaronWilliams detailing a 20-point reform plan. This reform plan had the same focus as his earlier legislation efforts: to listen to, respect, and empower Volunteers. Again, the emphasis was

on an agency working in partnership with the Volunteers. Only by supporting and empoweringVolunteers can the Peace Corps achieve its goal to serve as an effective agent of grassrootsdevelopment and cross-cultural exchange. Volunteers should succeed in partnership with thePeace Corps, not in spite of the Peace Corps [italics in original].

Ludlam presented emails from Volunteers which highlighted deficiencies in the PeaceCorps capacity to listen to, respect and empower the Volunteers. The excerpts paint a differentportrait of the Peace Corps than the one portrayed by the agency. The agency treated theVolunteers like children and remained number-focused. Ludlam was not alone in his perceptionof the Peace Corps. Other Volunteers shared his view as well.

Ludlam quoted one Volunteer:

One might wonder why these dissenting versions of the Peace Corps are rarely

presented to staff and to the public. In the course of listening to other PCVs on thetopic, we have learned that many have a vested interest in milking the myth for their own personal or career gain...there is little attention for anything but praise for theorganization because of the pervasive myth surrounding it.

Ludlam addressed the agencys reaction to criticism. The agencys response to criticism

by Volunteers is to castigate and/or ignore them. This is not the sign of a healthy agencycommitted to listening to the Volunteers and committed to reform.

He went on to use the underwhelming 2008 biennial survey results to make a case for the volunteer programs general state of disrepair. Of course, the agency did everything it couldto keep those results away from him. After first telling Ludlam the results were too big to fit ona CD and later telling him he would have to pay more than two thousand dollars to have them

reproduced, another staff member emailed them the pdf they had requested.Ludlam went on to discuss the Early Termination rates in depth, contrasted against theso-called Annual Early Termination Rate which had quietly replaced it. At best, this misleadingaccounting is incompetent. At worst, it is intentional deception. He derided the agencyscontinued focus on quantity over quality. He continued to point out self-contradictions in PeaceCorps reported numbers.

At the end of the 150-page memo is the 20 pages of excerpts of affidavits by PeaceCorps Volunteers dissatisfied with the state of the agency.

This memo was ignored.


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Congress would later require the Peace Corps to write up their self-assessment,reporting on selected topics. Despite the whole issue which brought about this mandate fromCongress, the agency was allowed to grade itself.

The Comprehensive Agency Assessment came out in June 2010. It was written by ateam hand-picked by the agency Director, Aaron Williams. The report did not address manykey issues brought up by Ludlams legislation or testimony, particularly the whistle-blowingprovisions. The report responded underhandedly to its critics by bringing up the glaringcriticisms which could not be ignored, then doing everything in its power to brush over them.

For example, the report began by answering the question, what would the PeaceCorps look like if it were created today? This challenge, to reinvision itself as though it hadbeen created today, had been posed by Strauss in an article for The American Interest. Theassessment teams political answer was that the Peace Corps will be a leader, in partnershipwith others, in the global effort to further human progress and foster understanding and respectamong people. This sentence just rephrases the Peace Corps three goals, prefixed with thePeace Corps will be a leader. The whole report downplayed and buried the Peace Corps mostserious weaknesses. After white washing and burying the agencys pervasive First Goal failings,the report ended by suggesting it needed more funds for Third Goal activities.

In stark contrast to Ludlams passionate testimony for reform, emphasizing a levelplaying field between agency and Volunteer, this odd document treats Volunteers more like avariable in its business model. A positive volunteer experience seems to be about as far asthey want to extend the hand of friendship to the Volunteers.

By presenting Congress a plan without substance, they reaffirmed their entrenchedopposition to reform.

The 50th Anniversary

The 50th anniversary of the Peace Corps was coming up in 2011. The Peace Corpsdidnt want this reform thing hanging over their heads on the year of their 50th anniversary.Hopefully the Comprehensive Agency Assessment would put that whole reform business in the

past. The agency had big plans to promote itself in 2011, and publicity from something like thatwould hurt their image.Unfortunately, a scandal far worse erupted at the beginning of 2011. In 2009, a Peace

Corps Volunteer named Kate Puzey had been murdered by a Peace Corps staff member. Shehad reported to Peace Corps Headquarters that the staff member was raping his students.She had explicitly requested anonymity from headquarters on such a sensitive matter, but theyleaked the information to her Country Director, who in turn told the staff member her identity.

The staff member slit her throat in the middle of the night and the Peace Corps tried tokeep the whole thing hidden.

Regarding this tragedy, Ludlam wrote in an open letter to the Peace Corps Community:

We learned that the Peace Corps had transferred authority to investigate crimes

against Volunteers away from the Peace Corps Inspector General. The motive wasthat the Peace Corps IG took these investigations seriously and sought to prosecutethe perpetrators, which prolonged the bad publicity arising from these crimes. We later learned that after the Kate Puzey murder the Peace Corps had waited two monthsbefore sending anyone to Benin to investigate the case and then sent two auditorswho had no experience investigating crime scenes. Because the investigation wasbotched, the Country Director in Benin has informed Volunteers in Benin that that thePeace Corps staff who perpetrated the murder will be released for lack of evidenceagainst them. Director Aaron Williams was aware of this when he testified at the May


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2011 hearing before the House Foreign Affairs Committee but failed to mention thesedevelopments.

This scandal hung like a dark cloud over the Peace Corps 50th year. A Congressionalhearing was called in May. The hearing revealed heart-wrenching stories of victims of sexualviolence, their neglect and abuse by the Peace Corps, and Director Williams acknowledging theagencys blame the victim culture. This widespread practice of blaming the victim has beenreported numerous times. Volunteer victims get blamed for bringing about their sexual assaults,rather than being supported or assisted. This has caused under-reporting of sexual assaults,because Volunteers know they will be blamed and support cut off.

This behavior is not new to the Peace Corps. Dayton Daily News reported the sametrends of bizarre behavior by the agency back in 2003. Since the Peace Corps has terriblerecord keeping, no institutional memory, and consistently misrepresents data, another patternpointed out back in 2003, it is difficult to gauge how widespread this behavior is, or how far backit goes.

The whole scandal would result in the passage of the Kate Puzey Peace CorpsVolunteer Protection Act at the end of 2011. It mandated the creation of a support structure for Volunteer victims of sexual violence, and confidentiality for Volunteer whistle blowers.

While all this was going on, the Peace Corps decided it wanted a national monumentdedicated to its Volunteers. Ludlam testified against the monument, which he said was a self-aggrandizing ego boost. A monument to a still-existing organization could become a liability if the organization, for example, lost some of its splendor.

The Big Picture

The last decade reveals a culture obsessively devoted to milking the myth, at theexpense of the Volunteers, quality programming, and communities in need. Rather thanaddressing what one Inspector General named a root cause of the Peace Corps pervasiveproblems regarding early terminations and violence toward Volunteers, quality programming,the Peace Corps blames the Volunteers who are victims of violence, sexual assault, crime, and

illness. This represents a decisive culture shift from the culture of the early years.Larry Browns 2011 book, Peasants Come Last , depicted the situation with insight.Brown was a Country Director in Uganda until Washington officials fired him as part of a coupto oust African Country Directors who had begun asking too many questions. He depicted anagency which runs its front line staff like a sweat shop, totally oblivious to the communitiesbeneath its feet.

In excruciating detail, Brown describes the top-down bureaucracy that dictated hisevery move. He said the country level staff were the figures at the bottom of the puppetstrings. The fingers of Washington reached into every aspect of my work. Washington ruled bycontrol: show me, prove it, display it, tell all... even about your personal lives. He details theabsurd micromanagement inflicted on the front end staff, and ridiculous expenditures of moneyat the hands of incompetent Washington officials. In order to make sure Brown and others were

not freeloading off the American government for...$4 meals, the Peace Corps spent between$800-$1,200 in staff time to keep him in line.Brown relates the most discouraging scene in the book when describing his attempts to

secure Volunteers for a food crisis that was brewing on the Kenya-Uganda border. He informedWashington he desperately needed a certain number of economic development Volunteers for the following year. Several weeks after submitting the request, he was informed he was too lateby a month. This deadline, a deadline about which Washington had never informed me wouldnow preclude all our planning to respond to the urgent needs of Ugandans -- in Karamoja, thosecoming out of the camps, and those in the war-ravaged north. He tried hard to work with and


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appease Washington, but his supervisor, Lynn Foden, totally shut him down.Mere weeks before the Volunteer placement dates, Washington politics shifted and

Obamas pledge to increase the size of the Peace Corps shifted the agency priorities. SuddenlyFoden, an acting HQ staff member who was eager for a permanent placement in the PeaceCorps, promised whatever help she could give. Through the beneficence of Washington, Brownwas to receive all the help he needed, and more.

Browns story comes to an end when he and other African Country Directors aresummarily fired for being independent thinkers. These vacancies would make convenientspace for Acting Director Jody Olsens friends. Lynn Foden would be kept on board for almost$150,000 per year.

Why the Agency Continues in this State

A high turnover is encoded into the Peace Corps with what is called the 5-year rule. Itwas originally intended to foster innovation and independent thinking: direct US hire employeescan work no more than five years for the agency. The rule has contributed to the agencyslack of institutional memory, and such a high turnover rate, combined with the abusive agencyculture portrayed in Peasants Come Last , and the high number of politically appointed positions,seems to have facilitated the proliferation of the myth-milking subculture, instead of aninnovative culture centered around Peace Corps ideals.

Ludlam and Strauss have pointed out the inordinately high ratio of political appointeesto regular staff. The Peace Corps Director is one of 33 political appointees who work at theagency. Meislers history of the first 50 years tells us that Shriver didnt want the Peace Corpsto become a political dumping ground, yet that is exactly what happened, and Meislers book, arelatively balanced account of history, documents some of this political cronyism.

Since the very beginning the agency has been focused on the quantitative growth of the number of Volunteers at the exclusion of other priorities. The number of Volunteers isproportionate to the budget money received by Congress. But despite a history of criticismover quality programming, the Peace Corps has always been on an expansion crusade, whilesidelining questions over the program quality. Links between program quality and problems

such as Early Terminations or risky behavior -- a contributing factor to Volunteer incidents of violence -- have been ignored in favor of expansion.Lacking any real oversight from Congress, the public, or anywhere else, the political

appointees are free to push for quantitative growth, and fight over scraps at the corner of theCongressional budget table, like the distant cousins of the mob boss that no one wants around,but who have to be included. Jobs are given to campaign contributors, who make their moneyback in a year or two. The appointees congregate around the iconic reputation of the PeaceCorps, using this relic as political currency in DC international development circles. An entiresegment of the international development economy revolves around the Peace Corps brandname...not the programs results. Anecdote is often used to combat the volunteer programslack of measurability, but as Larry Brown said, Charity is a feel-good thing but it is notdevelopment.

A DC resident, Will Dickinson is a first-hand witness to the power of the Peace Corpslabel. The reputation of the Peace Corps name, he says, catapults people far ahead in theinternational development industry. There are numerous perks to having the Peace Corps listedon the resume, such as educational and career benefits, not to mention the fact that one canspin their service a multitude of ways to people back in the States.

Will Dickinson spent years working on PeaceCorpsWiki.org to facilitate the developmentof institutional memory for the Peace Corps, create transparency, and an open source of information for the Peace Corps community. The agency has not responded well to an individualtrying to create more transparency while they were striving to stay hidden behind their opaque,


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iconic reputation. The agency has no interest in engaging with projects that promote unfilteredvolunteer centric view points, he said.

The power of the Peace Corps on a resume is directly proportional to the reputation of the Peace Corps. A certain segment of the Peace Corps community know this and viciouslydefend the reputation. Others keep silent about the agency, which, if challenged, wouldostracize them from these power circles. Whether the zealous defenders actually believe thereputations reality or not is another question. Regardless, the reputations mythic status is beingmaintained by the majority of the Peace Corps community.

Emotionally charged tales of Volunteers who have suffered beneath a blind and uncaringagency, Volunteers who find themselves cut off at the first sign of trouble, unsupported whenthey need it the most, and communities who are ignored in favor of petty politics all raiseinteresting ethical questions about the communitys collective responsibility in maintainingsuch a false image. When a hopeful Volunteer arrives to a nonexistent or irrelevant program,to poverty America cant even imagine, and when the agency actively maintains this state of existence, it seems difficult to justify the maintenance of the Peace Corps sacrosanct image.

PeaceCorpsWiki.org

Will Dickinson served in Armenia from 2004 to 2006. He had gone to the town of Jermuk expecting to be involved full time in development projects, but instead found his mainassignment only kept him busy a few hours a month. He found communities jaded and wary of Volunteers, Volunteers whose previous projects and activities were lost to memory. He said:

A metaphor for PC amnesia greeted me every time I arrived in Jermuk; justnext to the bus station was a cannibalized children's play ground constructed by a well-meaning and well-liked volunteer about five years before me. At this desolate location, Inever saw any children use the remaining jagged steel structures; this skeleton made astrong impression on me.

I also discovered that the source of knowledge about PC activity in Armenia wasnot PC headquarters but the residents of the community in which I was situated. They

commented on how nave new PCVs were given they found they had little sense of the immediate needs of the community, unaware of the successes and failures of their predecessors, and limited knowledge of the country as a whole. They even told storiesabout past PC efforts that were unsuccessful because of an unrealistic assessment of the community's needs.

Dickinson eventually had to go outside the Peace Corps to find work. He got a recently-

placed Country Director to sign off on his work, but met with hostility from other Peace Corpsstaff. One staff member burst into tears when he told her he had gone to get his own work,accusing him of going behind their back. He was threatened with Administrative Separation, buthe was able to provide documentation of his time on a GIS project, and they backed down.

Toward the end of Dickinsons service, he was finishing up a GIS mapping project when

he came into contact with another Volunteer who had done an eerily similar project. I wasshocked! How could I have no idea about this work?He returned from Armenia burned and bewildered by a so-called development agency

with very little evidence of its development. He built PeaceCorpsWiki.org as a transparentsource of information for other current and prospective Volunteers. He felt Volunteers neededcomprehensive information to be able to make informed decisions about serving in the PeaceCorps.

After a while of trying to collaborate with the Peace Corps and National Peace CorpsAssociation on this project, it became increasing clear that our message needed to be


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conformed and controlled in order to receive ANY support from these groups.Over the next several years, as Dickinson and others built on his wiki site, the Peace

Corps ostracized him. It would become clear that the agency had political motivationsthreatened by an open source of information about the program. I had no idea the politicaltraction the Peace Corps myth had, in the face of verifiable data, and how this mythologypermeates Washington DC and US-centric development world.

For those that served in my generation, the PC is a career stepping stone from nowhereinto the folds of the foreign service and development world....but based on the volunteer surveysmost agree it needs a major reform.

Dickinson had initially hoped for cooperation from the agency on a project that wouldhelp modernize and streamline its operations, but the agency treated him as it did everyone whothreatened its sacrosanct nostalgic dream. After several years of passive-aggressive hostilityfrom the agency, he was left burned out and frustrated. I just want this story told. I just wantclosure, he said at the end of 2011.

By now, Ludlams saga had been going on for six years. The agency had blackballedhim from official circles as well, and faced with the agencys unequivocal hostility, he hadbeen forced to publish his survey results, memorandums, testimonies, and other Peace Corpsinformation on Dickinsons site. Ludlams goal was also to provide Volunteers with complete,unfiltered information about Peace Corps programs, including but not limited to complete PeaceCorps Volunteer survey results.

Ludlam had managed to obtain and publish on the wiki the 2008 biennial survey results,broken down country-by-country. He created a sortable excel spreadsheet so prospectiveVolunteers could sort the information themselves and make informed decisions about the PeaceCorps programs.

He described the Peace Corps resistance to his requests in his 2009 memo to AaronWilliams:

The process by which the authors obtained the 2008 survey results canonly be described as Kafkaesque. In March of this year, at our request, Peace Corpsstaff gave us a hard copy of the worldwide responses to the survey. On April 13 we filed

a FOIA request for the country-bycountry breakout of the results. In our request wenoted that the hard copy in our possession invited Country Directors to view the country-by-country results on the Peace Corps intranet confirming that the country-by-countryresults exist there in electronic form. On May 11 the Peace Corps FOIA officer notifiedus that, It is estimated that the total number of pages responsive to your request is6,068 pages. The file containing these documents is too large to send electronically or scan to a CD-Rom. Therefore, your request will be subject to a reproduction charge of $895.20 for all pages over the 100 page limit. In short, she was insisting that we pay for a hard copy of the breakouts for each country. About this time she produced for us asample table for Question E 11 (regarding Country Directors) that provided answers for all of the countries to this question, a question-by-question format. We inquired whether the answers were available in this question-by-question format as well as in the country-

by-country format. We were told that itd cost the Peace Corps $2,242 to produce theresponses in a question-by-question format, again apparently only in a hard copy. Weasked repeatedly if the documents already existed in electronic format on the intranetsiteshe never confirmed that they didand we offered to supply her with a mini-external hard drive to which to download the electronic files. Out of exasperation at her evasions and unresponsiveness, we filed a FOIA appeal on May 27 asking again for electronic copies of the filescountry-by-country and question-by-question. On June 23the Peace Corps formally denied our appeal saying that the processing of our request,including the refusal to produce the documents in electronic form and the outlandish cost


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estimates, was proper. Anticipating that our appeal would be denied, in early weapproached Peace Corps headquarters staff who went to the Peace Corps intranetjustwhere wed said the documents were postedand downloaded for us copies of all of thecountry-by-country survey results77 files. They fit easily on a flash drive. It took lessthan 5 minutes to download the documents.

Needless to say, the agency was not happy with the publication of those survey results,

even though they are legally required to provide them through the Freedom of Information Act.The Peace Corps unsurprisingly denied Ludlams requests for the 2009 and 2010

results. Ludlam sued the agency to obtain those results through FOIA. When obtained, he says,he will publish them online as well. Over the years, Ludlams gradual expulsion by the PeaceCorps community would lead him to believe the Volunteers were the ones who had to press for reform. He had initially avoided going to the press.

Dickinson explained:

I told Chuck to go to journalists but hes like no, no, Ill give them the benefit of the doubt. Chuck believed that he had to exhaust the proper methods before goingto the press.... this included presenting multiple rewrites of his legislation, but he gotlittle feed back or support from lawmakers who had little to gain in political capital byreforming an American icon...even if it was flawed. He knew the press would inherentlymisrepresent the issues in favor of the shock value and ratings potential of accepts of the story mainly dealing with death and rape.... but NOT come to logical conclusion thatthe political interest groups were was what was causing the organization to stagnate.

Faced with the unwavering hostility of the agency and the Peace Corps communitys

collective maintenance of the myth, Dickinson says his role in the future of the wiki is uncertain.Mostly he is tired of dealing with the whole thing.

Ludlam feels an open, wiki-like site is critical for successful reform efforts.

Is the Peace Corps Relevant?

The Peace Corps dealt with the challenge of making itself relevant to the 21st century,with the Comprehensive Agency Assessment . Rather than offering a plan to make itself relevant, or explaining how it is relevant, it just claims its mission and goals are still relevant,then proceeds to white wash. The very existence of the question of the relevance of the PeaceCorps is not a good sign.

Does the Peace Corps Do Any Good? is the name of the last chapter of Meislersbook, and he provides evidence that yes, the Peace Corps does do good. As with the previousquestion, this questions very existence is also not a good sign. The agencys failure to addressthese questions adequately and develop a plan relevant to reality does not bode well for thefuture of the organization.

The agency and part of the community cling desperately to an ancient bureaucratic

structure and a mythic reputation that is nothing more than a relic. This relic is the tip of an iceberg that has begun emerging over the past decade, and that process can only continue asthe world moves forward into the digital age. The collective maintenance of this relic by thePeace Corps community, in the face of such flagrant organizational failures, is a dubious andquestionable endeavor.

I think theyre living in delusion, Dickinson said. Its not just the Peace Corps, its thelarger Peace Corps community that have nothing to gain from tearing down the image. Theinjustice is to those that serve and arent supported in a realistic way...as well to every Americanwho should know just what type of agency this is.


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In this digital age, increasing transparency will probably prevent the Peace Corpscommunity from milking the myth indefinitely. If the agency can only demonstrate its programsimpact with meaningless statistics and a history of no documentation, it wont stand up well toother programs who adapt to the changing times.

The Bottom Line: Reform

The Peace Corps should not be left in the hands of self-centered bureaucrats whodo not understand or care about the vision and mission of the Peace Corps. The behavior of the agency has proven it is, as Strauss said, schizophrenic. His assessment is penetrating.The Peace Corps does not know what it is, and the gradual occlusion of the agency over theyears suggests this behavior will continue indefinitely. It should instead be revitalized by thepeople whose energy and enthusiasm gave it life in the first place, the American people and theVolunteers.

Ludlam envisioned a flattened agency working in partnership with the Volunteers. LarryBrown also felt the need for reform, and suggested a grant-making institution. Strauss painted apicture of a misguided agency that needed to give up on its myth, in order to grow up and fulfillits goals. Dickinson is burned out and wants nothing more to do with the Peace Corps. Thereare other Volunteers on the internet with their own stories, others who are interested in reform.

Shriver felt the Peace Corps should have a fourth, peace-building goal. His extensivework in the field of development and peace-building gave rise to the Sargent Shriver PeaceInstitute. According to their website, he defined his vision of peace-building in a 1964 speechin Thailand: the idea that free and committed men and women can cross, even transcend,boundaries of culture and language, of alien tradition and great disparities of wealth, of oldhostilities and new nationalisms, to meet with other men and women on the common ground of service to human welfare and human dignity.

He gave a speech at Yale in 2003, when he was 95. As quoted in an article by LarryLeamer, he said, We didnt go far enough! Our dreams were large, but our actions weresmall. We never really gave the goal of World Wide Peace an overwhelming commitmentor established a clear, inspiring vision for attaining it. If we had, the world wouldnt be in the

mess we are in, and what could have been should have been. In Leamers critical article,he laments the distance of the Peace Corps reality from the dream that spawned it, praisesLudlams prodigious efforts, and said he also feels the need for reform.

The Idea of the Peace Corps

What was the idea that gave birth to the Peace Corps?Meisler states that the idea was an afterthought during Kennedys election campaign. It

struck a chord with the youth when war was a contentious issue in the political struggle betweenKennedy and Nixon.

Meislers account follows Kennedy from an irritating debate with Nixon, where Nixonhad accused three Democratic presidents of leading the nation into war, but no Republicans

had led the nation into war in the past 50 years. Annoyed by this, Kennedy flew from New Yorkfor an overnight stopover in Ann Arbor. A motorcade took him to a University of Michican dormfor some sleep, when he was surprised with a crowd and a microphone.

According to Meisler, a plaque at that location says it was there that Kennedy firstdefined the Peace Corps. Its seed was planted when Kennedy issued a challenge to studentsduring an impromptu speech: On your willingness...not merely to serve one year or two yearsin the service, but on your willingness to contribute part of your life to this country, I think willdepend on the answer whether a free society can compete.

Shrivers suggestion of an explicit peace-building goal followed by stating the Peace


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Corps hadnt gone far enough, that they should shoot for World Wide Peace, hints that hethinks that the ideal the Peace Corps is striving for might be peace.

If the Peace Corps has identity issues, as critics have suggested, it would seem logicalto reexamine the idea and ideals behind the Peace Corps, when considering reenvisioning thePeace Corps, and determining its relevance.

Nicole Fiols testimony at the Peace Corps Volunteer Empowerment Act hinted at her understanding of the Peace Corps three goals. This bill will ensure that all volunteers andapplicants like myself get the resources they require to help those who are in great need of our services; which is the foundation of freedom and condition of Peace. Although the wording of the last part could be clearer, this suggests and interesting interpretation of the three goals. Thefirst goal has been interpreted as the grassroots development goal, and the second and thirdhave been interpreted as cross-cultural exchange. Her statement, in context with Kennedy andShrivers statements, suggests that the underlying ideals driving the Peace Corps, as embodiedin its three goals, may be interpreted as freedom and peace.

The question is, is this articulated clearly enough in the Peace Corps existing goals andactual performance?

How to Reform?

Unfortunately, given the Peace Corps communitys takeover by a myth-milking economy,

there are only disincentives for anyone to reform the Peace Corps. It is difficult to organizea reform movement when the majority of the Peace Corps community believes they have anincentive to maintain the myth at the expense of criticism and reform. The gold stamp of thePeace Corps is political currency, and that currency is only as valuable as the reputation. Not tomention that no one wants to admit theyve been perpetuating this system.

Any reform effort would be campaigned against by the Peace Corps, the NPCA, andsome vociferous members of the community. The crux of the problem is the myth, which ispassively maintained by the larger community and by extension the government and the public.Reform would turn into a protracted, exhausting battle, to end with what potential reward? Thedestruction of an American icon? Animosity from a community? Reform mobilization could proveexceedingly difficult as long as the myth is around.

As mentioned, no one has any incentive to engage in prolonged reform efforts. Thisis one reason a web-based community-building approach may not work so well. It could bepossible, and it didnt stop me from building PeaceCorpsReform.org, but an empty web site witha couple articles would only paint the reformers as isolated rogues with a grudge. This is whatthe Peace Corps would like to see. For a community web site to work, it would require a seedcommunity of committed, dedicated people to build and maintain it from the very start. In fact,without a dedicated seed group, Volunteer-initiated reform may not be possible. And given thelack of incentive for most people, this may prove difficult.

On top of this incentive problem, the agency has eroded away the idealistic culturewhich gave it birth, hidden it behind a distorted myth of a reputation, and contaminated theidealism with a subculture that milks the myth and behaves like a profit-hungry corporate

giant. Peasants Come Last makes it vividly clear this behavior has now become pervasive,systematic, and the dominant element of the culture.

What now exists is a fractured Peace Corps community, divided between beneficiariesof the myth and problem children. Gone is the original idealistic youth which powered thePeace Corps, which perhaps could have united Volunteers together to form a voice and help theagency evolve into what its supposed to be. What is the community supposed to unite aroundwhen the majority of the community is part of the resume mill, and thus has a disincentive toreform?

All this is just an illusion, of course. Reform could only help the Peace Corps in the


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long run, but this is a misperception being perpetuated by the myth. The zealously defensivesubculture is probably a minority, but they are the controlling minority. The vast majorityprobably has no interest or incentive to reform, while another minority probably sees the needfor reform, but realizes how arduous and potentially unrewarding such an endeavor would be.Of course, with the agency hiding the data, its hard to know the truth.

Peace Corps criticism is not the product of isolated rogues with grudges, and it is notthe product of people who want to hurt the Peace Corps. Criticism of the Peace Corps points toa pattern of abusive, negligent behavior concealed behind the myth. The Peace Corps shunsconstructive criticism and mislabels it as destructive.

debunking the peace corps myth

Documents