Executive Order 10924: Peace Corps

Explanation and Analysis of the Document

In issuing an executive order, a president must proceed cautiously lest he offend the legislative branch by usurping their lawmaking powers or overstepping the bounds of his office. Kennedy's winning the election by such a slim margin added motive for political discretion. Prior to sending out this executive order, the former representative and senator had to ensure congressional support for the Peace Corps, which he did. In light of the delicate balance of executive and legislative powers, the tone and content of the executive order merit scrutiny as the new president moved his agenda even while calming Congress.

In its opening line, the executive order reflects a clear respect for the legislative process that his order would seem to bypass. By citing the Mutual Security Act of 1954, Kennedy places the Peace Corps program within the framework of an already existing law, and, later in the document, he employs the same act to provide a familiar structure for placing the Peace Corps director under the secretary of state. In section 2, the rhetoric continues the theme of connecting the new order to the old law by tying the Peace Corps to “existing economic assistance programs” and by citing functions already allowed by the Mutual Security Act as the jobs of the Peace Corps director.

Section 3 seems to assure the Congress that little will change. The executive order requests no new funds. It instead allows the already allocated Mutual Security Act budget to provide old contingency monies to support the new program's start. To this judicious framing of the order, Kennedy appended a note to Congress that further alleviated apprehension by saying that the order would establish the Peace Corp on a temporary basis.

In section 4 the president again seems to limit the plan, this time by citing an executive order of his Republican predecessor. Dwight Eisenhower, just before leaving office, issued Executive Order 10893, Administration of Foreign Assistance and Related Functions. This final section of Executive Order 10924 reminds Congress, especially Republicans, of that recent precedent for issuing executive orders on foreign policy. Kennedy then places the Peace Corps establishment within the boundaries of Executive Order 10893, neither superseding it nor derogating from any of its provisions.

Kennedy, explaining the need for the executive order, again downplays its significance by depicting a test run for the Peace Corps and the chance to permit several hundred volunteers to be selected, trained, and sent to serve by the end of 1961. The president's note and the executive order's pervasive minimizing of the changes in establishing the Peace Corps hardly hint at the reality that would soon follow. The Peace Corps would evolve into an independent agency with thousands of volunteers in scores of countries serving millions of people and would endure into the twenty-first century.