[Congressional Record Volume 142, Number 123 (Tuesday, September 10, 1996)]
[Extensions of Remarks]
[Page E1555]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




         LORET RUPPE: AN UNSELFISH CIVIL SERVANT WITH A VISION

                                 ______
                                 

                           HON. DOUG BEREUTER

                              of nebraska

                    in the house of representatives

                      Tuesday, September 10, 1996

  Mr. BEREUTER. Mr. Speaker, as the attached excerpts from an Economist 
obituary indicate, Loret Ruppe was an extraordinarily effective, 
dedicated, and public-service oriented leader for one of America's most 
optimistic programs, the Peace Corps. Her leadership of that Agency 
helped instill in it her own dedication and desire to help those most 
in need of America's can-do spirit.
  As Director of the Peace Corps, Loret Ruppe worked with this Member 
to facilitate cooperation between that important program and the highly 
successful, Farmer-to-Farmer Program. The marriage of these two 
American technical assistance programs insures that Loret Ruppe's 
outstanding legacy continues in all those villages and out-of-the way 
places where her Peace Corps and Farmer-to-Farmer soldiers spread the 
positive results of her optimism and determination.

                  [From the Economist, Aug. 24, 1996]

                              Loret Ruppe

       When Loret Ruppe was made director of America's Peace Corps 
     in 1981, it was probably the least attractive of political 
     appointments in the gift of the president. ``We called it the 
     peace corpse,'' recalls a diplomat embarrassed by young 
     Americans dumped in, say, an African village and expected to 
     promote western ideas. Ronald Reagan, the new broom who in 
     1980 had swept away the Democrats, was prepared formally to 
     bury the corpse. But Mrs. Ruppe, a prominent Republican who 
     had been leader of the Reagan-Bush campaign in Michigan, 
     wanted the job, and Mr. Reagan was happy, though surprised, 
     to repay a political debt cheaply. If she finished it off, no 
     one would be too bothered.
       To some, Mrs. Ruppe seemed as naive as her new charges. She 
     was approaching middle age, a mother hen with five daughters, 
     adept at Republican money-raising, but with no foreign 
     experience. But delve deeper. Mrs. Ruppe's mother was an 
     anti-nuclear campaigner who alarmed her family by camping out 
     on the bomb-testing grounds in Nevada. And she had been an 
     admirer of President Kennedy, like her (and Mrs. Ruppe) a 
     Roman Catholic, who had created the Peace Corps in 1961.
       So there was a seed, and it germinated. Mrs. Ruppe decided 
     that the Peace Corps was a good idea that had been 
     discredited by its Kennedy-minded sloppiness. The Peace Corps 
     had been the one fresh project that Kennedy had brought to 
     the presidency. He called it his ``winning number''. He 
     visualized the many thousands of students who had supported 
     him during his election campaign as ``soldiers of peace''. He 
     contrasted them with ``ugly American'' ambassadors who 
     ``lacked compassion.'' In his inaugural address in 1961 
     Kennedy said that the Peace Corps would help those ``in the 
     huts and villages of half the globe struggling to break the 
     bonds of mass misery.'' For poor countries this was a 
     hurtfully condescending message from a fat cat. They wanted 
     money and investment, not what a critic of Kennedy called 
     ``some Harvard boy or Vassar girl'' who ``lives in a mud hut 
     and speaks Swahili''.


                           kennedy's children

       In fact, few in the early days of the Peace Corps had 
     equipped themselves even with fluency in a second language 
     before setting forth. Many were innocents abroad. Wise minds 
     in the Kennedy circle did advise caution in the selection of 
     recruits. Notwithstanding, they said, the admirable 
     enthusiasm of the thousands of Americans who applied by every 
     post to be allowed to help the miserable Africans and Asians, 
     they should have appropriate skills and a degree of maturity. 
     But the average age of Kennedy's Peace Corps ``children'', as 
     they came to be called, was an unmatured 21.
       The corps that Mrs. Ruppe took over in 1981 had shrunk from 
     15,000 in the 1960s to about 5,000. In the previous decade 
     seven directors had come and gone. The corps budget had been 
     cut, and cut again. The Soviet Union said, perhaps correctly, 
     that the corps was a weapon in the cold war; in those days 
     nearly everything was. The corps, Mrs. Ruppe recalled later, 
     was in ``the least liked, least supported, least respected'' 
     part of the United States budget.
       At first Mrs. Ruppe took no salary. This was no hardship 
     for her--she came from a wealthy family of brewers--but the 
     gesture was well received. The many liberals in the corps, 
     initially hostile to a Reagan appointee, were won over by her 
     clear belief in the movement and her sensible management. She 
     ensured that anyone sent to the 90 or so countries served by 
     the corps had a skill to offer, most commonly in agriculture 
     as the majority of the world's poor are peasants, but there 
     was, too, a wide range of expertise available, from nursing 
     to computers. These days the average age of members is 29. 
     Some are over 50, bringing to their tasks years of 
     experience. Under Mrs. Ruppe the corps gained flexibility: 
     sometimes a farmer, or a doctor or an engineer, will take a 
     sabbatical from his regular job to spend some useful time 
     overseas. The present director, Mark Gearan, said that Mrs. 
     Ruppe was ``the driving force'' in its revitalization.
       Kennedy's ``winning number'' has spread far beyond the 
     bounds of his New Frontier. These days all the rich countries 
     have dozens of organisations that send volunteers abroad to 
     poor and not-so-poor countries. Some of them are government-
     supported, although many are private, relying on charity. In 
     France, voluntary work abroad has been acceptable as an 
     alternative to military service. Such schemes are generally 
     regarded as a Good Thing, perhaps suspiciously so. This year, 
     keeping 6,529 Peace Corps people in the field will cost 
     America $219m, about $33,500 a person, a good deal less than 
     the expense of running the most junior diplomat. Neither is 
     Peace Corps work solely altruistic. For a Peace Corps 
     scientist specialising in, say, pest control, Africa is a 
     laboratory not available at home. As a result, the rich world 
     becomes subtly richer. In 1989, after eight years as director 
     of the corps, Mrs. Ruppe became ambassador to Norway, 
     Washington's reward to one of its least-ugly Americans.

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