Peace Corpsman

Waiting around Chandigarh airport, officials of India's Punjab State knew that a distinguished American would soon arrive--but they were far less certain about just who he was and what he was up to. They had heard the word Sargent, and at least one greeter bustled about asking whether it was a name or a military rank. They had also heard that he was coming to explain a new U.S. assistance program--which they automatically assumed had something to do with money or material goods. It was, therefore, a considerable surprise when R. Sargent Shriver Jr., brother-in-law to President John Kennedy and director of the U.S. Peace Corps, stepped down from his DC-3 in open-necked white shirt and grey woolen slacks. Making an eight-nation tour of Asia and Africa in preparation for actual Peace Corps operations, Sarge Shriver, 45, soon assured the Punjabis: "We come not only to teach, but principally to learn." As far as India was concerned, Shriver quickly demonstrated that he had plenty to learn--but he at least seemed willing to make the effort.

Shriver's Punjab stay began with a massive brunch (fruit salad, porridge, fish, bacon and eggs, chicken and tea) with grey-bearded Chief Minister Sardar Partap Singh Kairon. Although he holds a master of arts degree from the University of Michigan, Kairon plainly had the wrong idea about Peace Corps purposes, promptly began asking for agricultural tools and pneumatic tires for bullock carts. Shriver patiently explained that the aim of the Peace Corps was merely to send able and enthusiastic young Americans abroad to work side by side, wherever needed, with the natives of underdeveloped countries. Kairon advised Shriver to be careful about Peace Corps assignments: "Your city boy doesn't do too well in villages, nor does your village boy in cities."

Touring the Punjab hinterland, Shriver's first stop was at Daon Paren, a village of some 300 houses and huts. Peering inside such dwelling places, Shriver saw a sick old woman lying in a rag-covered bed, asked where she could get medical aid. He was told that a health center about four miles away was the only place where medicine could be obtained. Inspecting a relatively comfortable hut, Shriver remarked: "This guy is really well off." He was quietly informed that the hut's owner sustained himself and his family by working as a taxi driver in Bombay, some 800 miles from home.

Driving from village to village through the Punjab countryside, Shriver was struck by the fact that Indian farmers huddle together in villages rather than living in houses on their own land; again, it was explained that tillable land is too precious in India to clutter up with buildings. As he made his rounds of the villages, Peace Corpsman Shriver seemed suspicious that things might have been fancied up in preparation for his arrival; he tested with his forefinger the whitewash on walls to make certain it was not still damp, turned to escorting Indian officials for assurance that there had been no abnormal cleanups. "But," protested one village leader, "only last evening we learned you were coming. Nothing is prearranged, that is certain."

In teeming New Delhi, Shriver, assistant general manager of populous Chicago's Merchandise Mart, scored a success. He met for an hour with India's Prime Minister Jawaharlal Nehru, who announced himself strongly in favor of the Peace Corps idea, invited Shriver to start working out a specific program for India. Shriver was not quite ready for that. "We have come here to try to find out what the Indian government wants of us," he told newsmen, "and we will try to do it. We do not come here with a program of our own." He did hope that from 30 to 50 Peace Corpsmen would arrive in India by late fall. "Our people will be here to work with their hands," he said, "and not as executives or advisers. They will indulge in no propagandizing or proselyting, and in no case will they be displacing any Indian national who can fill that job."

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