Peace Corps.

Although legislative proposals for a Peace Corps had been put forward in the late 1950’s, John F. Kennedy gave the idea impetus in the last week of his presidential campaign on November 2, 1960, when he proposed it as one way to rejuvenate U.S. foreign policy by promoting goodwill and peace using a volunteer corps of young Americans. One of the earliest acts of the Kennedy administration’s New Frontier policy was the signing of an Executive Order on March 1, 1961, by which the Peace Corps was officially inaugurated. President Kennedy appointed R. Sargent Shriver director of the corps. The Peace Corps attracted a number of young, prominent, energetic government officials who worked tirelessly from their offices in the Maiatico Building in Washington, D.C., overlooking Lafayette Park, to build an organization equal to the ideals set for it by President Kennedy. The Peace Corps, established as an independent agency, was to provide newly independent countries of the Third World with trained manpower to help those being served to better understand Americans and to help Americans better understand foreign peoples and cultures.