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Volunteers in the Middle of Cold War Ideological Struggles

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The Peace Corps in South America

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Abstract

This chapter takes on the ideological dimensions of the Peace Corps’ extension. Its labors unfolded amid deep disputes that affected its efforts. To the degree that the Peace Corps’ efforts complemented local private and public initiatives, they generated support. Alternately, given the Cold War ideological framework that informed the paradigms of social intervention, they also generated rejection and suspicion. All these factors shaped the experiences of many volunteers and led to extreme situations in which specific projects and volunteers were expelled from universities and even from countries such as Bolivia and Peru, which barred the program altogether in the early 1970s. Nonetheless, the Peace Corps continues today. It has evolved over time, adapting to new political, social, and ideological contexts.

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Notes

  1. 1.

    Thomas J. Scanlon, Waiting for the Snow. The Peace Corps Papers of a Charter Volunteer (Chevy Chase: Posterity Press, 1997), vii.

  2. 2.

    On the expulsion from Bolivia, see James F. Siekmeier, “Sacrificial Llama? The Expulsion of the Peace Corps from Bolivia in 1971,” Pacific Historical Review, Vol. 69, N. 1, February, 2000, 65–87 and Molly Geidel, Peace Corps Fantasies: How Development Shaped the Global Sixties (Minneapolis, MN: University of Minnesota Press, 2015), 209. On the Peruvian case, see Glenn F. Sheffield, Peru and the Peace Corps, 1962–1968 (Ann Harbor: Ph.D. Dissertation, University of Connecticut, 1991), 13.

  3. 3.

    The New York Times, New York, July 28, 1967.

  4. 4.

    Letter from Carlos Ríos to the Peace Corps in Lima, November 22, 1964, John F. Kennedy Library (hereafter JFK), Returned Peace Corps Volunteers, box 2, folder “Letters on the Death of John F. Kennedy, # 1.”

  5. 5.

    Fred Bales and Jan Bales, Chilean Odyssey. The Peace Corps Letters of Fred Bales and Jan Stebing Bales (Bloomington: AuthorHouse, 2007), 67.

  6. 6.

    “Face to Face: The Diary of a Peace Corps Volunteer in Bolivia by Stuart Goldschen” (n.d.), JFK Returned Peace Corps Volunteers, box 36, folder “Bolivia. Goldschen, Stuart. Diary of PC Volunteer: Face to Face,” 30.

  7. 7.

    La Prensa, Lima, Peru, November 12, 1963.

  8. 8.

    Cecília Azevedo, Em Nome da América. Os Corpos da Paz no Brasil (Sao Paulo: Alameda, 2008), 256.

  9. 9.

    Voz de la Democracia. Semanario del Partido Comunista de Colombia, Bogota, Colombia September 11–17, 1961.

  10. 10.

    Unidad, La Paz, Bolivia, March 30, 1963.

  11. 11.

    James F. Siekmeier, “Sacrificial Llama?…,” 65–87.

  12. 12.

    Obrero y Campesino, Lima, Peru, October, 1963.

  13. 13.

    Última Hora, Santiago, Chile, June 18, 1965.

  14. 14.

    El Siglo, Santiago, Chile, August 8, 1969.

  15. 15.

    Javiera Soto-Hidalgo, Espía se ofrece. Acusaciones de intervencionismo contra Estados Unidos en Chile. 1964–1970 (Santiago: Acto Editores, 2015), 98–106.

  16. 16.

    Eduardo Labarca Goddard, Chile invadido. Reportaje a la intromisión extranjera (Santiago: Editora Austral, 1968), 236–237.

  17. 17.

    Eduardo Labarca Goddard, Chile invadido…, 243.

  18. 18.

    Eduardo Labarca Goddard, Chile invadido…, 238.

  19. 19.

    Ricardo D. Salvatore, Disciplinary Conquest. U.S. Scholars in South America, 1900–1945 (Durham and London: Duke University Press, 2016), 1–16.

  20. 20.

    Letter from R. Sargent Shriver to Abraham Hershberg, August 4, 1965, National Archives, College Park (hereafter NARA), Record Group (hereafter RG) 490, Correspondence of the Peace Corps Director Relating to Latin America, 1961–1965, box 6, folder “March–December 1965.”

  21. 21.

    “Chile Program Summary 1967–1972,” NARA, RG. 490, Country Plans, 1966–1985, box 10, folder “Chile 1967–1972.”

  22. 22.

    Glenn F. Sheffield, Peru and the Peace Corps…, 6.

  23. 23.

    San Francisco Chronicle, San Francisco, May 8, 1958.

  24. 24.

    Paulo Drinot, “Creole Anti-Communism: Labor, the Peruvian Communist Party, and APRA, 1930–1934,” Hispanic American Historical Review, 2012, 92 (4): 704.

  25. 25.

    Marcelo Casals, El alba de una revolución. La izquierda y la construcción estratégica de la “vía chilena al socialismo.” 1956–1970 (Santiago: LOM, 2010).

  26. 26.

    Allan McPherson, Yankee No! Anti-Americanism is U.S.-Latin American Relations (Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 2003).

  27. 27.

    Glenn F. Sheffield, Peru and the Peace Corps…, 137.

  28. 28.

    Glenn F. Sheffield, Peru and the Peace Corps…, 144–155.

  29. 29.

    David Scott Palmer, “Expulsion from a Peruvian University,” Robert B. Textor (ed.), Cultural Frontiers of the Peace Corps (Cambridge, Mass.: The M.I.T. Press, 1966), 251.

  30. 30.

    Richards , who had a Master’s Degree in Latin American History from the Universidad de San Carlos in Guatemala and had studied Spanish for three months in Mexico, spoke perfect Spanish.

  31. 31.

    David Scott Palmer, “Expulsion from a Peruvian University…,” 256.

  32. 32.

    “Report on Peru University Incident,” NARA, RG 490, Country File 1962–1963, box 23, folder “Peru,” 1.

  33. 33.

    David Scott Palmer, “Expulsion from a Peruvian University…,” 256.

  34. 34.

    “Report on Peru University Incident,” NARA, RG 490, Country File 1962–1963, box 23, folder “Peru,” 1.

  35. 35.

    David Scott Palmer, “Expulsion from a Peruvian University…,” 256.

  36. 36.

    “Pressure on Peace Corps in Peruvian Universities,” October 15, 1963, NARA, RG 490, Country File 1962–1963, box 23, folder “Peru.”

  37. 37.

    The Washington Post, Washington, DC, November 11, 1963.

  38. 38.

    David Scott Palmer, “Expulsion from a Peruvian University…,” 261.

  39. 39.

    David Scott Palmer, “Expulsion from a Peruvian University…,” 243.

  40. 40.

    “Overseas Evaluation Peru by Julien R. Phillips, distributed May 24, 1968,” NARA, RG 490, Program Evaluations, 1968–1969, box 6, folder “Peru 1968,” 194.

  41. 41.

    “Report on Peru University Incident,” NARA, RG 490, Country File 1962–1963, box 23, folder “Peru,” 1.

  42. 42.

    The New York Times, New York, June 4, 1965.

  43. 43.

    “Overseas Evaluation Peru by Julien R. Phillips, distributed May 24, 1968,” NARA, RG 490, Program Evaluations, 1968–1969, box 6, folder “Peru 1968,” 147.

  44. 44.

    Eugenia Palieraki, ¡La revolución ya viene! El MIR chileno en los años sesenta (Santiago: LOM, 2014); Marian Schlotterbeck, Beyond the Vanguard: Everyday Revolutionaries in Allende’s Chile (Berkeley: University of California Press, 2018).

  45. 45.

    El Sur, Concepción, Chile, October 6, 1966.

  46. 46.

    El Sur, Concepción, Chile, October 14, 1966.

  47. 47.

    El Sur, Concepción, Chile, October 18, 1966.

  48. 48.

    El Sur, Concepción, Chile, October 19, 1966.

  49. 49.

    Ercilla, Santiago, Chile, September 14, 1966.

  50. 50.

    El Sur, Concepción, Chile, October 19, 1966.

  51. 51.

    Punto Final, Santiago, Chile, suplemento a la edición N. 32, primera quincena, July 1967.

  52. 52.

    Punto Final, Santiago, Chile, suplemento a la edición N. 32, primera quincena, July 1967.

  53. 53.

    El Sur, Concepción, Chile, June 16, 1967.

  54. 54.

    El Sur, Concepción, Chile, June 17, 1967.

  55. 55.

    Chicago Tribune, Chicago, June 30, 1967.

  56. 56.

    El Sur, Concepción, Chile, June 17, 1967.

  57. 57.

    El Sur, Concepción, Chile, July 14, 1967.

  58. 58.

    El Sur, Concepción, Chile, August 1, 1967.

  59. 59.

    The New York Times, New York, September 17 and 20, 1969; The Boston Globe, Boston, September 20, 1969.

  60. 60.

    Letter from Maurice Sterns to Richard Grisom, May 13, 1963, NARA, RG 490, Country File 1962–1963, box 23, folder “Venezuela.”

  61. 61.

    The New York Times, New York, March 6, 1969.

  62. 62.

    Gary Dean Peterson, Tales from Colombia: The Deeds & Misdeeds of 41 Peace Corps Volunteers Who Answered President Kennedy’s Call to Serve (Fruit Heights, Utah: Paulary Publishing, 2011), 232.

  63. 63.

    “Training Evaluation. Colombia Small Business/Child & Family Development project, by Robert Joy,” distributed February 17, 1969, NARA, RG 490, Training Evaluation Reports, 1964–1969, box 5, folder “Colombia In Country, 1969.”

  64. 64.

    “Report on Peru University Incident,” NARA, RG 490, Country File 1962–1963, box 23, folder “Peru,” 1.

  65. 65.

    Glenn F. Sheffield, Peru and the Peace Corps…, 134.

  66. 66.

    Glenn F. Sheffield, Peru and the Peace Corps…, 135.

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  1. Pontificia Universidad Católica de Chile, Santiago, Chile

    Fernando Purcell

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Purcell, F. (2019). Volunteers in the Middle of Cold War Ideological Struggles. In: The Peace Corps in South America. Palgrave Macmillan, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-24808-6_6

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-24808-6_6

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