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Oral history
John F. Kennedy Oral History Collection
JFKOH-DH-01
In this interview Henderson discusses working at the United States Embassy in Peru under President Dwight D. Eisenhower; his daily routine and responsibilities as economic counselor; the Point Four Program and Peru; Peruvian elections; James I. Loeb as the U.S. Ambassador to Peru and changes and tensions within the Embassy; the military coup in Peru and the events leading up to it; Haya de la Torre’s self-destructive behavior in the Peruvian presidential election; working at the Embassy in Peru after the coup and after Loeb leaves his position; pressure on the United States from Peruvian authorities; the issue of U.S. non recognition of the military leaders; Canadian and British interests in Peru; John Wesley Jones as the U.S. Ambassador to Peru; problems with military governments and transitions; Henderson’s daily routine and responsibilities as the U.S. Ambassador to Bolivia; his first few weeks in Bolivia; John F. Kennedy [JFK] and Bolivian President Victor Paz Estenssoro; Henderson’s impressions of JFK; American hostages in Bolivia in late 1963; the military coup in Bolivia and the events leading up to it; the political breakdown of Bolivia; and political and military maneuvering in other Latin American countries, among other issues.
Oral history
John F. Kennedy Oral History Collection
JFKOH-JIL-02
This interview focuses on the end of Loeb's tenure as Ambassador to Peru and his time working in Guinea, among other topics.
Oral history
John F. Kennedy Oral History Collection
JFKOH-JIL-01
This interview focuses on working on Hubert Humphrey's campaign during the 1960 Democratic primary and Loeb's time working as the Ambassador to Peru, among other topics.
Oral history
John F. Kennedy Oral History Collection
JFKOH-RFK-03
In this interview Robert F. Kennedy [RFK] discusses the 1962 steel crisis; some major issues and accomplishments of John F. Kennedy’s [JFK] presidency; choosing the U.S. Ambassador to Russia; foreign aid and treaties; the military coup in Peru; the space race during the Kennedy Administration; the 1962 congressional and gubernatorial campaigns; JFK’s dinner for the Nobel Prize winners; the Polaris submarines; problems with the New York Herald Tribune; New York politics; various pieces of federal legislation, 1961–1963; the Dominican Republic; Department of Justice investigations under RFK; the difficulties of being Attorney General; congressional issues in early 1963; the Vietnam War escalation in 1963; American support of the coup in Vietnam; Henry Cabot Lodge as the U.S. Ambassador to Vietnam; the prisoners from the Bay of Pigs invasion; American actions in Cuba; unemployment and civil rights; RFK’s meeting with James Baldwin; JFK’s trips to the South and speeches on civil rights; the nuclear test ban treaty; and JFK’s trip to Ireland and Rome, among other issues.
Oral history
Returned Peace Corps Volunteer Collection
RPCV-MR-2011-023
Jeanette (Kitti) Kitzman served as a Peace Corps volunteer in Peru from October 1964 to August 1967 on a Latin American arts and crafts project. She had previously worked at a phone company in Southern California for over 15 years. Upon hearing President Kennedy speak about the Peace Corps, Kitzman signed up at the post office to become a volunteer. Her training took place in Puerto Rico. In Peru, she worked with a local weaving co-operative whose members were mostly women. She helped the co-op improve its marketing and increase its sales, and soon the women were able to construct their own building. After finishing her Peace Corps service, Kitzman became an art teacher in Philadelphia. Interviewed and recorded by Kimiko Doherty, August 13, 2011. 2 tapes (web streaming files combined into 1 file).
Oral history
Returned Peace Corps Volunteer Collection
RPCV-MR-2010-034
Sara Williams served as a Peace Corps volunteer in Peru from 2008 to 2009 on a community health project. She applied at age 65, and had over 40 years of professional experience in the field of health care, having worked as a nurse, a public health educator, and a clinic administrator. Williams completed in-country training in Peru. She was assigned to a difficult location in a remote post that was six hours away from medical care with inadequate housing and a lack of clean water, which resulted in her being almost constantly ill. In spite of her declining physical health, Williams accomplished a considerable amount of work before terminating early for medical reasons. In her interview, she discusses how a different placement might have enabled her to better serve the Peace Corps during her time in Peru. Interviewed and recorded by Phyllis Noble, August 16, 2010. 2 tapes (web streaming files combined into 1 file).
Oral history
Returned Peace Corps Volunteer Collection
RPCV-MR-2008-071
Tom and Sarah (Sally) Kaesemeyer served as Peace Corps volunteers in Peru from 1966 to 1968 in a rural community development program. They were the only married couple to last through their two-year Peace Corps service, and are still married today. Tom had a background in Latin American studies while Sally had a passion for travel. During their time in Peru, they lived in both a rural village, Yanaoca, and a regional capital, Cusco. While they felt inadequately trained prior to entering the country, they were able to find their place once they got there. Interviewed and recorded by Melanie Spence, February 26, 2008. 1 tape (web streaming files combined into 1 file).
Oral history
Returned Peace Corps Volunteer Collection
RPCV-MR-2007-018-001
James (Jim) Hamill served as a Peace Corps volunteer in Peru from 1965 to 1967 in an urban community development project. A graduate of Iowa State in architectural studies, he completed training at Cornell University. Hamill was assigned to Arequipa to work at a local housing agency on building design and engineering. He married a Peruvian woman during his second year of service. Interviewed and recorded by Robert Klein, December 8, 2006. 1 tape (web streaming files combined into 1 file).
Oral history
Returned Peace Corps Volunteer Collection
RPCV-MR-2005-020
Julia Zagar entered the Peace Corps with her husband. She worked as a Food for Peace volunteer focusing on crafts native to each of the three regions in which they resided. Julia discusses her triumphs and her learning process. She describes her connection to the people and how they positively shaped and influenced her life. Interviewed and recorded by Jessica Naugle, August 31, 2004. 1 tape (web streaming files combined into 1 file).
Oral history
Returned Peace Corps Volunteer Collection
RPCV-MR-2005-013-007
Noel Roger Chapin served as a Peace Corps volunteer in Peru from 1966 to 1968 working in community development. After obtaining his degree in history from the University of Wisconsin, Chapin trained at the University of Kansas rural training center. He was assigned to the small village of Chiquan in the mountains off the coast in the north to work in cooperative development. There was little productive activity until he shifted to Austrian Peace Corps - like civil engineering to work as a surveyor on small village engineering projects. Interviewed and recorded by Robert Klein, July 25, 2004. 2 tapes (web streaming files combined into 1 file).
Oral history
Returned Peace Corps Volunteer Collection
RPCV-MR-2002-020-006
Isaiah Zagar served as a Peace Corps volunteer in Peru from 1964 to 1966. At the time he joined, he was an artist. Zagar was deselected in training, then re-selected. He served alongside his wife. The couple worked in various Peruvian locations and after six months, finally settled on helping to develop a crafts industry. Interviewed and recorded by Robert Klein, April 26, 2002. 1 tape (web streaming files combined into 1 file).
Oral history
Returned Peace Corps Volunteer Collection
RPCV-MR-2002-016-010
Joel Meister served as a Peace Corps volunteer in Peru from 1964 to 1965 in a school nutrition program. He started with a school breakfast program using Agency for International Development (AID) food supplies, and later branched out into community development. Meister befriended a sixteen year old boy, Alejandro Toledo, who later became the President of Peru in 1999. Interviewed and recorded by Robert Klein, January 22 and February 12, 2002. 2 tapes (web streaming files combined into 1 file).
Oral history
Returned Peace Corps Volunteer Collection
RPCV-MR-2002-001-005
Nancy Deeds Meister served as a Peace Corps volunteer in Peru from 1964 to 1965 in a community development project. She befriended a sixteen year old boy, Alejandro Toledo, whose family Meister lived with. Alejandro Toledo later became President of Peru in 1999. Interviewed and recorded by Robert Klein, October 13, 2001. 2 tapes (web streaming files combined into 1 file).
Oral history
Returned Peace Corps Volunteer Collection
RPCV-ACC-2019-006
Judith Madden-Sturges served as a Peace Corps Volunteer in Urcos and Cusco, Peru, from 1963 to 1965 in a community development program. As a student at the University of Michigan, she attended the presidential campaign speech in which John F. Kennedy announced his plans to create what would later become the Peace Corps program. She discusses the research she did for working papers that were used at the Shriver Summit, which she attended, where many aspects of the Peace Corps program were debated. She mentions Sargent Shriver's interest in involving women in the Peace Corps. She also discusses her connection with the Kennedy family through her disabled sister, who attended the Lt. Joseph P. Kennedy Jr. Memorial School, and how experience with her sister's nonverbal communication helped to prepare her for communication with Peruvians when she lacked adequate language capacity. Madden-Sturges also served as an interpreter for Robert Kennedy when he visited Peru in 1965. Finally, she talks about the problem of imposing an American view of development on other peoples and the negative impact of the Peace Corps' de-selection process. Interviewed and recorded by Evelyn Ganzglass, August 25, 2018. 2 digital audio files (web streaming files combined into 1 file).
Oral history
Returned Peace Corps Volunteer Collection
RPCV-ACC-2018-016
Rolly Shaner Thompson served as a Peace Corps Volunteer in Peru from 1964 to 1966 in a rural community action project. During training at the University of Oklahoma, she met trainee Wayne Thompson, whom she married after Peace Corps. During her early months in the Peruvian Andes, Thompson worked in a community in a variety of "Cooperacion Popular" projects. Following that, she spent a year in Yucay, in the Urubamba Valley, where she started 4-H clubs, taught health and sanitation, and encouraged gardening. She moved to Chacan for her final six months and worked with women embroiderers, helping them produce marketable products. After the Peace Corps, Thompson made her career in education and counseling. Along with Wayne, she owns a sheep and alpaca farm in Eugene, Oregon. Four decades after her Peace Corps service, Rolly is once again involved with textiles in Peru, and travels annually to the Puno region to work with drop-spindle spinners of alpaca yarns. Interviewed and recorded by Patricia A. Wand, May 7, 2018. 2 digital audio files (web streaming files combine into 1 file).
Oral history
Returned Peace Corps Volunteer Collection
RPCV-ACC-2018-015
Charles Wayne Thompson served as a Peace Corps Volunteer in Peru from 1964 to 1966 in a rural community action project. He was stationed in the Peruvian Andes, not far from Cusco and above the town of Calca, in Yanahuaylla, a small Quechua community of farmers who raised potatoes, wheat, corn, and cornnuts. They taught him traditional techniques for farming above the tree line at 9,000 feet, which was very different from the pear and peach orchards he knew back home in Medford, Oregon. Thompson worked with leaders in two communities to solicit money to build the first school and later earned money for an Allis Chalmers thrashing machine, which unfortunately never functioned. A medical emergency forced his departure six weeks early; unable to say goodbye in 1966, he returned in 1990 and found friends and a fully functioning school. After the Peace Corps, Thompson taught high school social studies until 2001. He and his wife Rolly, whom he met in Peace Corps training, own a sheep and alpaca ranch near Eugene, Oregon. Interviewed and recorded by Patricia A. Wand, May 7, 2018. 2 digital audio files (web streaming files combined into 1 file).
Oral history
Returned Peace Corps Volunteer Collection
RPCV-ACC-2016-049
Ray Kurtz Warburton served as a Peace Corps Volunteer in Bolivia from 1966 to 1968. Warburton was a Harvard graduate and honestly admits that he was motivated to join the Peace Corps as a way to avoid the Vietnam War. He began his training at the University of Washington in Seattle, and received an additional month of training in Bolivia. Warburton completed two years of service with a community development project in the town of Rosario, where Seventh Day Adventists had established a base among the Aymara-speaking villagers. After a devastating earthquake in Peru in 1970, Warburton responded to an emergency need for Spanish-speaking architects to assist with recovery efforts. He returned to Peace Corps for a short-term assignment and spent four months planning the relocation of a town. 2 digital audio files (web streaming files combined into 1 file). Interviewed and recorded by Phyllis Noble, August 9, 2016.
Oral history
Returned Peace Corps Volunteer Collection
RPCV-ACC-2019-147
Natasha (Tasha) Prados served as a Peace Corps volunteer in Peru from 2011 to 2013 on a water and sanitation project. She was stationed in Rio Grande, right off the Pan-American Highway about 8 hours south of Lima. There she worked to increase access to potable water, build the local community's first sewage system, install improved cook stoves for women cooking on open fires, and reduce trash burning. She also taught classes on HIV prevention, sanitation and hygiene, English, vocational orientation, and more than 300 hours of exercise classes. Prados talks positively about her host family and the general openness and friendliness of people in the community. However, she notes that she found the machista (machismo) culture and the relaxed attitude toward punctuality challenging. She concludes that in her experience, Peace Corps volunteers were not colonial imperialists, as she had feared, because local communities were deeply involved in development activities. Interviewed and recorded by Evelyn Ganzglass, August 25, 2019. 1 digital audio file.
Oral history
Returned Peace Corps Volunteer Collection
RPCV-ACC-2019-120
Evelyn Kohl (now LaTorre) served as a Peace Corps volunteer in Peru from 1964 to 1966 in a RCA Tools community service project. She had previously done missionary work in Mexico through the Catholic Church and heard Sargent Shriver speak at a conference. She describes the extensive physical and language training at Cornell University and in Puerto Rico, as well as the winnowing down of her large class of trainees. After arriving in Peru, she recounts the difficulty in finding a town to serve in and a job that would help the poor. After settling in Abancay, LaTorre coached a soccer team and ran clubs with the young people in a nearby town. Her ability to sew and her experience in 4-H were heavily utilized. She also talks about her romance with her (now) husband, their wedding after completing service, and returning to the U.S. Interviewed and recorded by Candice Wiggum, July 11, 2019. 2 digital audio files (web streaming files combined into 1 file).
Oral history
John F. Kennedy Oral History Collection
JFKOH-PAS-03
This interview focuses on relations with diplomats in Washington D.C. and Robert F. Kennedy’s 1965 trip to Latin America, among other topics.