ABSTRACT
The Peace Corps became the centerpiece of the response. Even as the new president spoke, he had already commissioned his brother-in-law, R. Sargent Shriver, to translate the bare campaign concept of a Peace Corps into operational reality. The Peace Corps first had to find willing host countries, and frequently it had to court uninterested and suspicious governments. Inexperience conspired with a conscious bias among many Peace Corps staff against becoming too like the technical experts and professional programmers in the foreign aid establishment. Job descriptions were supplied later, but the basic commitments were made at the upper echelon, often by Peace Corps and host officials who were only vaguely aware of what the volunteers would be doing or the field conditions they would encounter. The Philippines seemed an ideal setting for one of the Peace Corps' maiden programs. Shriver was extremely sensitive to suggestions that the Peace Corps was deliberately fostering a "numbers game."
