The Foreign Service Journal, October 2008

language skills, or what effect Peace Corps efforts have had on slowing the spread of HIV/AIDS. “We know the real value can never be measured,” Tschetter says, citing the good will toward America created by the Peace Corps brand of public diplomacy. But for many Peace Corps advo- cates, the Bush administration has lost the credibility necessary to be a catalyst for change. They point to a 2003 investigation by the Dayton Daily News that found that the Peace Corps had taken a blasé attitude toward the safety of vol- unteers, watching while reported assault cases involving Peace Corps Volunteers increased 125 percent from 1991 to 2002. The agency disputed the extent of the problem, pointing out that it had established an Office of Safety and Security in 2002, but it did embark on a new security review. Tschetter tells the Foreign Service Journal that Peace Corps work carries an inherent risk, but every effort is made to ensure volunteers’ safety. “All volunteers are given the knowledge and tools to perform their service safely,” he says. Tschetter declined, however, to provide any information about how often current Peace Corps Volunteers are victims of crime. There have also been allegations of politicization. In February, ABC News reported that an embassy official in La Paz had met the previous summer with a group of 30 Peace Corps trainees and instructed them to report on any encounters they had with Cubans in the field. Peace Corps personnel were quick to criticize the meet- ing. “The Peace Corps is an apolitical institution,” Bolivia Deputy Director Doreen Salazar told ABC at the time. “We made it clear to the embassy that this was an inap- propriate request, and they agreed.” Then there was the Washington Post report last sum- mer that White House aides had held a “general political briefing” at Peace Corps headquarters after the 2002 elec- tions. The March 2003 meeting, which came to light only five years later, after an inquiry by Senate Foreign Relations Committee Chairman Joseph R. Biden Jr., D- Del., involved 15 political appointees and amounted to a recap of the 2002 election results, Peace Corps spokes- woman Amanda Beck told the Post . “It was a courtesy to political appointees,” she said. “There was no suggestion of getting involved in anything” cam- paign-related. Peace Corps advocates such as Dane Smith, a former president of the National Peace Corps Associa- tion and former ambassador to Senegal, say these events seem more like foolish mistakes by misguided individuals than part of any concert- ed effort to politicize the agency. “I don’t think politicization has been a particular problem with the Bush administration, but I do think that [job] positions in Washington have been politicized to a greater extent than necessary.” There is widespread interest among Peace Corps advocates, Smith points out, in reducing the number of political appointees — now about 30 — who serve at the agency. Tschetter also downplays any concerns about politi- cization. He says the Peace Corps “has a proud history of nonpartisanship” and that its success is “contingent on volunteers not becoming identified with controversial or political issues.” Professionals vs. Volunteers? But two predominant schools of thought among for- mer volunteers and staff both take issue with Tschetter’s premise — that the Peace Corps is in good shape — and argue that the agency must change radically to thrive once again. On one side are many volunteers like Chuck Ludlam, a former aide to Independent Sen. Joseph Lieberman of Connecticut, who has advised Dodd on his legislation, the Peace Corps Volunteer Empowerment Act (S. 732). Having served as Peace Corps Volunteers in the 1960s in Nepal, Ludlam and his wife, Paula Hirschoff, decided to volunteer again in Senegal from 2005 to 2007. “We were shocked to see how the agency is run, the contempt for volunteers, the poorly designed programs, the inade- quate training and the nonexistent support of volun- teers,” Ludlam wrote earlier this year. Ludlam backs the Dodd bill, which would increase the size of the Peace Corps while empowering volun- teers by allowing them to carry out demonstration pro- jects apart from their primary development work, to par- ticipate in job performance reviews of the Peace Corps country directors and staff, and to act as whistleblowers F O C U S 22 F O R E I G N S E R V I C E J O U R N A L / O C T O B E R 2 0 0 8 For many Peace Corps advocates, the Bush administration has lost credibility as a catalyst for change. (Continued on p. 24)