An Executive Peace Corps

When the International Executive Service Corps was organized last June as a sort of executives' Peace Corps, wits immediately dubbed it the "Paunch Corps." Last week the paunch began to show some punch. Elected formally to the $50,000-a-year full-time President's post that he has filled unofficially for five months: Frank Pace Jr., 52.

former Army Secretary and General Dynamics chief. Pace, who offered to accept a salary of only $36,000, flew off to the Far East to see what corps services are most urgently needed. Behind him, in new Manhattan offices, a 14-man Service Corps staff got busy at the job of finding U.S. executives to send overseas.

Just as many emerging nations welcome expertise from the U.S. Government, emerging businessmen want it from the private sector. Businessmen from 26 African, Asian and Latin American nations have indicated that they would like help with such jobs as auditing, cost control, administration, plant engineering, product design and marketing. To provide it, according to preliminary plan, U.S. businessmen joinng the Service" Corps would spend up to two years abroad on a consultant ?asis; unlike the situation in the Peace corps, they would be paid a nominal fee collected by the corps from the companies they advise.

The Service Corps' costs at the start are being underwritten by the Agency for International Development; after hat, they will be subsidized by U.S.companies. As a catalyzer, 52 executives have been named to the corps' board, and Chase Manhattan's David Rockefeller--one of the original proponents of the idea--has been elected chairman to succeed the late C. D. Jack-on of Time Inc. Along with money, U.S. corporations hopefully will also offer talent. The Service Corps has already received 3,000 inquiries about its program, sifted out 700 as particularly promising. It is now trying to recruit the kind of young middle-managers who are most needed--but who can be pried away from most corporations for two years only with great difficulty.

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