More for More

In the annual scramble for appropriations on Capitol Hill, nothing has pleased Congress more than the Peace Corps' stubborn refusal to spend every last cent of its budget. Honoring the idealism of 11,902 volunteer workers in 52 countries, it has shunned frills and pared costs, saving taxpayers roughly $45 million over four years. Peace Corps Director Jack Hood Vaughn, 47, a feisty, compact (5 ft. 8 in.) redhead, was commended by Vice President Humphrey for slashing $495 off the upkeep of each corpsman last year.

But this year Vaughn asked for more money. Amid a rush of requests for Peace Corps volunteers from all over the non-Communist world, he submitted a 1968 budget of $118.7 million, up from last year's $110 million, to put 17,750 workers and trainees into 58 countries by next September. "It costs less money to make peace than war," Vaughn reminded the House Foreign Affairs Committee. "But it still costs a lot." Last week the message got through. While the House panel followed the Senate in trimming 3% from his requested budget, in a period of all-round retrenchment so small a cut represented a solid vote of confidence in the Peace Corps.

Verve & Versatility. Even though the Peace Corps rejects four out of five applicants, it is the country's largest single employer of new college graduates. In the beginning, the corps sought specialists; now it concentrates on volunteers with liberal-arts degrees. Their verve and versatility suit them for tackling villagers' grass-roots problems where experts might feel wasted. Their average age is 24, although an 80-year-old served as a nurse in Turkey and 142 volunteers currently are over 50.

The range of work seems limited only by the Peace Corps' collective imagination. Volunteers are in demand for more than 300 job categories, from agronomy, bacteriology and carpentry to X-ray technology and zoology. A team of corpsmen installed the University of Malaya's first electronic computer; one is a game warden in Ethiopia; Gerald Brown, a volunteer from Douglas, Ariz., conducts Bolivia's National Symphony orchestra, and Lynn Meena's televised English lessons made her one of Iran's most popular performers. The majority teach, and the Corps has even sent blind volunteers abroad to teach the blind.

Twi & Pushtu. Inevitably, some ventures end in trouble. When corpsmen overcame a Senegalese tribal taboo against selling rice, farmers stopped growing it because the crop had lost its religious importance. An instructor watched helplessly while typewriters distributed in Ethiopia turned to junk for lack of care. Language training for the corpsmen was once squeezed into 50 hours, and one slum worker in a Chilean callampa did not have enough Spanish to ask how to get to the bus that would take him to work. "At times they miss the mark," Vaughn confesses. "And when they do, it's certain we helped them miss."

To get back on target, Vaughn has upgraded pre-assignment training until it accounts for a quarter of his budget. Instruction has been stretched from eight to 14 weeks, with a minimum of 300 hours of language tutoring. Courses are offered in 183 tongues, including Twi, Tswana, Sesotho, Pushtu, Waray-Waray and Bicolano.

Because they often combine their altruistic attitudes toward service with vociferous antipathy to the Viet Nam war, Peace Corps volunteers have sometimes been accused of dodging the draft. But Vaughn, a World War II Marine officer, ridicules the charge, pointing out that their two-year stint abroad is a deferment, not a substitute for military service. Many are called up when they return home. Draft boards have even recalled 38 corpsmen from overseas, and Vaughn fumes over the money wasted training volunteers who are inducted before they complete Peace Corps service. The real reason so many young people choose the Peace Corps, he says, is to garner a hidden bonus: to discover a deeper maturity in themselves by serving others. "Our nation," reasons Vaughn, "will be the better for it."

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