Page 175 - Gobierno ivisible

Date: 4/5/2011 Page: 175 of 237

By the spring of 1963, United States analysts concluded that the Soviet Union, having had little success with this
loud, public campaign against the Peace Corps, had embarked on a simultaneous behind-the-scenes campaign
against the Corps. In Ghana, for example, the Soviet ambassador succeeded in persuading the government of
President Kwame Nkrumah to impose some restrictions on the Peace Corps. And in May, 1963, the Ghanaian
Times, regarded as the unofficial spokesman for Nkrumah, openly attacked the Corps as an alleged CIA tool.

There seemed no likelihood that the public attacks would stop, but their very intensity logically dictated that
Shriver, more than ever, would want to keep the Peace Corps pristine. A spy incident involving a volunteer would
give the Russians a propaganda field day and could possibly wreck the Peace Corps, and Shriver's political career
as well.

The Peace Corps, it should be noted in fairness to the CIA, maintains it does not know of a single case in which it
could be sure of an attempted infiltration by an intelligence agent seeking to use the Corps as cover.

But the fact that Shriver felt he had to take the astonishing precautions he did, speaks volumes. It reflects the
atmosphere of mistrust that is felt, rightly or wrongly, by many overt officials of the United States Government
toward their less visible colleagues. The distrust is not universal, however. Some unlikely departments of the
government have become vehicles for secret operations of various shadings. The story of one of these begins in a
house in Cuba.

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* Actually, the Peace Corps has rather strict rules about sex. "In-service marriages of single volunteers must have
the prior approval of the Peace Corps representative in charge of the project," a Peace Corps booklet warns
sternly. "Approval will not be granted when the future spouse has come from the U.S. or from some other country
for the purpose of marrying a volunteer ... married couples who find they are to become parents must notify their
Peace Corps representative as quickly as possible."