Being First: An informal history of the early Peace Corps

• How did the Peace Corps move from idea to reality in just six months?
• Who were those who first served with the Peace Corps?
• What was it like to be a Peace Corps Volunteer in 1961?

In 1961, after five years as a teacher in New York City, author Robert Klein answered President Kennedy's call to serve in the Peace Corps. He taught in Ghana for two years and then joined the Peace Corps overseas staff, serving in Kenya and in Ghana, where he was the country director from 1966 to 1968. In retirement, Klein has been the self-appointed secretary-convenor of the Ghana I group and has organized the Returned Peace Corps Volunteer Archival Project, which collects Peace Corps oral histories in cooperation with the National Archives at the John F. Kennedy Library in Boston, Massachusetts.