“The spirit of Kennedy which burned so brightly in that time has for a variety of reasons faded,” Roberts explains, citing the disillusionment of young people with their government after the progression of the Vietnam War and, later, the Watergate scandal.
President Nixon opposed funding the project further, and subsequent presidents did little to ensure its success.
Controversy surrounding the enrollment in the Peace Corps as a potential method of draft dodging and threats of communist influences also cast a shadow over Kennedy’s original vision.
Dissatisfaction with volunteer experiences abroad was a factor too, especially for volunteers in less-established programs in areas such as Central America.
Clapp, who taught English in a secondary school in a remote town in northern Nigeria, says that “the Peace Corps was very much finding its way at this point.”
“We were expected to live like our host-country counterparts,” explains Clapp, who lived the life of a normal civil servant in Nigeria, occupying faculty housing, hiring servants, and enjoying recreational games of tennis and snooker.
THE PEACE CORPS TODAY
Now in its 50th year, the Peace Corps is getting as much media attention for its failures as for its successes. The Corps sent 7,671 volunteers abroad in 2009, about half the number of those it sent abroad in 1966. Of late, the program has been weighed down by accusations of dealing insufficiently with instances of rape of female volunteers.
A 1961 Crimson editorial laments that the Peace Corps serves only undeveloped countries in lieu of suffering individuals in the United States.
“The institution that I think exists today that in many ways has tapped into the idealism of the Peace Corps is Teach for America,” says Roberts, remarking that many more of his students apply to TFA than to the Peace Corps. He credits TFA’s higher interest on college campuses to TFA’s youth, its effective recruiting, and its unique appeal.
“I also think in a larger sense that to students looking out at the world and saying we’re going to make a difference, teaching in Oakland or Houston seems a more possible place for now than Tanzania or Botswana,” Roberts says.
Despite its imperfections, Roberts sees the Peace Corps as “a critical example of doing it right,” serving both those in need and those who volunteer with the organization.
—Staff writer Michelle B. Timmerman can be reached at mtimmerman@college.harvard.edu.