ANGEL TO BOLIVIAN PEASANTS

• Document Type: CREST
• Collection: General CIA Records
• Document Number (FOIA) /ESDN (CREST): CIA-RDP75-00149R000700280032-3
• Release Decision: RIFPUB
• Original Classification: K
• Document Page Count: 1
• Document Creation Date: December 16, 2016
• Document Release Date: December 29, 2004
• Sequence Number: 32
• Publication Date: September 13, 1966
• Content Type: NSPR

Y1
Approved For Release I b , t l lit 75-00149R0 280b 1--,
ct r\~ 1 )
-moo '
13 SEP 1966
Lc A Ir( .() C W GCic
PEACE CORPSMAN MOURNED
"
- ArigeFt
LA' PAZ, Bolivia (AP)-In
the slum high above this
mountain capital the ragged
Indian peasants say Sandra
Smith was an angel.
In the city itself sophisticat-.
ed editorial writers say she
was a true revolutionary, a
soldier who gave her life to the
cause of redeeming Bolivia's
downtrodden Indians.
In her own eyes Sandra L.
Smith, 22, was a Peace Corps
volunteer doing her job. That
was to run a one-room school
where children were learning
to read and write. She also {
gave their mothers advice on
cooking and sanitation, and
kept house for her husband, a
fellow volunteer and childhood
sweetheart.
Sandra died last month of a'
SANDRA SMITH
uated from the University of
Rochester.
The school, in the middle of
a dirt-floor adobe compound,
is about 12 by 26 feet. The
furniture consists of scrap
lumber and bricks. But for the
27 children who study there,
the school is a great deal bet-.
ter than what their parents
had in childhood.
"There were no schools
when I was young," says Ame-
lia de Churates, 'whose two
children attend Sandra's
school. "My girls are learning
many things."
Like most of the other moth-
ers in El Alto, ' Mrs, de Chur-
ates is an Indian peasant
'whose main language is the
Aymara dialect. For her chil
dren's education she pays a.
peso a week. That's only about
Cause of Death Unknown desks." but it's sizable for the desper-
The Peace Corps in Wash- One of 200 volunteers as- ately poor campesinos of the
ington said death was appar- signed to Bolivia, Sandra had highlands. . The money was
ently due to a pathological been liviuug and working in the used to pay for supplies, and
cause which has not been de- El Alto #Xum near the city's for the salary of a young girl
termined; she had been feel mountaintop airport for a from the interior who helped
ing ill for a couple of days. year. Her husband, Frederic' Sandra with the younger chit-
While congressmen In near . W. Smith, 23, taught masonry, dren. .
/by Chile accused the Peace at a nearby trade school and "She was constantly think-
Corps of serving as a front for worked with Sandra in teach- hig of the school and how to
the Central Intelligence Agen- ing their neighbors rudimen- improve it,"' says Rosa Pe-
cy, the newspaper El Mario of . tary sanitation. ,, .laez, Sandra's 24-year-old as-
La Paz editorialized: "Al-, sistant. Barely literate herself,
though you did not wish it to "There Was No School"
.. : she, is now trying to run, t} le
be, your life is a slap in the Both were brought up in up- school alone while waiting'fpr
face to all the paper revolu- state New York where they the Peace Corps to, decide
tionaries who sing odes to the - attended Clarence Central whether a new volunteer will.
'campesinos'- from -their plush ' High School, and bothe grad- be sent iuto.the project. ?,p
Approved For Release 2005/01/05 : CIA-RDP75-00149R000700280032-3