Executive Order 10924: Peace Corps

Audience

Congress is the primary audience of “The Towering Task” and Executive Order 10924. Shriver and his committee's plan proposed a Peace Corps that would have five thousand volunteers serving in fifty countries by 1964. They argued that this size would have enormous psychological impact on American youth and developing nations. Kennedy, however, faced the skepticism of politicians, including Eisenhower, who ironically and prophetically suggested sending volunteers to the moon, and Nixon, who saw the Peace Corps as a potential haven for draft dodgers. In using the executive order and depicting the Peace Corps as a pilot plan, Kennedy allowed time for popular support to grow; for volunteers to be recruited, trained, and sent; and for Shriver and former Speaker of the House and current Vice President Lyndon Baines Johnson to convince Congress. The executive order reassured Congress. Shriver and Johnson persuaded Congress to turn the order into a law—the pilot program became an independent, funded agency. The combination of Johnson's prestige, Shriver's visit to each senator and representative, and the public's enthusiasm carried the day with lawmakers.

Executive Order 10924, despite seeming tentative, showed prospective volunteers that the Peace Corps promised during the heat of a political campaign was now being delivered to them as an opening act of the new administration. The order was also a beacon for the American public, showing that the country was facing a new frontier with a “new generation” ready, as Kennedy later said, to meet its “rendezvous with destiny” (Hoffman, p. 39). Finally, the order sent a signal to friend and foe alike of America's humane willingness to help other nations help themselves.