The Peace Corps and Tanzania

The Peace Corps was founded in 1961. The first problem faced was whether any country would ask for volunteers. To address this problem, Sargent Shriver, the first Peace Corps director, traveled early on to Africa to encourage requests and met Tanzanian president Julius Nyerere, who asked for engineers, and the second group of volunteers to arrive overseas landed in Tanzania in 1961. Tanzania became independent from Great Britain in 1961. The journey to independence, how it was governed in 1966 at the time of the Kinsey case, and relations between the United States and Tanzania are examined, with a discussion of the roles of Julius Nyerere, Paul Bomani, and Lady Marion Chesham. The case presents a potential international disaster for this country, still in its infancy, at a time when there are already strains over Nyerere’s “African socialism” and America’s role in the Congo.