RETURNED VOLUNTEERS QUESTION THE PEACE CORPS
When Peace Corps recruiters came to the Columbia campus last March, members
of the Committee of Returned Volunteers at Columbia engaged them in a discussion
which raised these critical questions about the Peace Corps:
Peace Corps and the Draft
After a year-long decline, applications to the Peace Corps have soared following
the recent draft rulings.   The whole "volunteer" status of the Corps can be questioned
in the light of Selective Service directives for "channelling".   No one would argue
that it is better to be a soldier than a volunteer, but how distinct are those roles
under present circumstances ?
Free Speech in the Peace Corps
In more than a few instances volunteers have been threatened with termination for
engaging in the mildest forms of dissent.   In the Philippines some were prevented
from calling a meeting of Volunteers concerned about the Vietnam war, and an attempt to mimeograph copies of the CRV position paper on Vietnam was thwarted
when the Peace Corps director ripped up the stencils.   Would you give up your
rights as citizens when you Join the Peace Corps?
Peace Corps and the State Department
When 92 Peace Corps Volunteers in Chile signed a Negotiations Now statement,
they were called into the embassy and told by the ambassador that their act was
being viewed with concern by the state department.   They were instructed to stop
circulating the statement and to remove their names or face termination.   This concern of the state department is not confined to such incidents.   The state department
reviews and passes on every Peace Corps project.   Is the Peace Corps a vehicle
for genuine change or a tool for implementing the peace of the status quo?
The Role of the Peace Corps in United States Foreign Policy
El Tiempo, a conservative newspaper in Bogota, Columbia, referred to the Peace
Corps as "Marines with velvet gloves."   This is not a new assertion, but the fact
that it now comes from less than radical sources indicates that the people of the
third world see the real face of America in Vietnam and the Dominican Republic.
The avowed goals of the Peace Corps are precisely the types of change characteristically repressed by local elites, often with whatever help is necessary from -he
United States.   The Peace Corps itself is often a part of this support.   Is it just
coincidental that the Peace Corps in the last two years has left Guinea, Gabon,
and Pakistan, but gone into South Korea and the strategic trust territory of Micronesia?
The Attitude of the Poace Corps
Peace Corps Director Jack Vaughn says of the peace movement against the Vietnam
War:   "Having consigned more of my life to this cause (peace), I knov, enough about
the movement for peace—real peace—to say forget that approach."   Vaughn, who .,,-,