Expulsion of the Governmental International Volunteers During the Cold War Comparing Five Cases of Expulsion of the US Peace Corps from Latin America

Abstract

This study compared the cases of expulsion from Latin American countries experienced by the United States Peace Corps (hereafter, Peace Corps), a government sponsored volunteer agency. The investigation period was set from 1971 to 1981, when the Peace Corps withdrew the most from the Latin American region, and it investigated five selected countries (Bolivia, Peru, Panama, Brazil, and Guyana) that the Peace Corps was asked to leave from host countries. The study compared the situations in these five countries when expulsions occurred, and it explored (1) what was the background of expulsion of the Peace Corps, and (2) how the United States perceived the expulsion of the Peace Corps. The study mainly used letters and newspaper articles, Peace Corps internal documents as well as telegrams including materials declassified under the author's request from the National Archives and Records Administration and LBJ Presidential Library. The results showed a common trend among the host countries that expelled the Peace Corps, that those host countries' governments were implementing policies against the will of the United States, and those governments were in a period of expansion of multilateral economic and diplomatic relations including communist countries. In addition, the rise of international anti-American movements in the 1960s and 1970s made it easier to expel the Peace Corps. On the other hand, as for the United States, it became clear that even if the diplomatic relations between the two countries were not good, they tended not to make decisions to withdraw volunteers by themselves. The result of the study showed how both host countries and the US sides utilized international volunteer program for constructing their own image and appealing its own political position towards international community.