THE RESPECTABLE MUCKRAK OLD PEACE CORPS EXECS NEVER DIE; ONE OF THEM JUST FOUNDED THE WASHINGTON MONTHLY MAGAZINE

• Document Type: CREST
• Collection: General CIA Records
• Document Number (FOIA) /ESDN (CREST): CIA-RDP88-01314R000300360004-0
• Release Decision: RIPPUB
• Original Classification: K
• Document Page Count: 2
• Document Creation Date: December 15, 2016
• Document Release Date: August 26, 2004
• Sequence Number: 4
• Publication Date: May 25, 1969
• Content Type: NSPR

The Washington Star Sunday i;egazi
Approved For Release 2004/09/03 22IA+DF9691314R00030
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- RESPECTABLE MUCK
Old Peace Corps execs never die; one of them
just founded The Washington Monthly magazine
e ? t
"WELL, TRY to find out who he is and call hint back.
3e sounds like some kind of tycoon."
Charles Peters, editor of The Washington Monthly
lna ;azine, replaced the telephone on its hook and
somewhere in the maze of tiny fifth-floor offices at
150 Connecticut Ave. NW a secretary must have
hauled down a co >y of "Who's Who" and began trying
to fi ire out the identity of whoever it was that called
full-time staff members and by carefully chosen free-
lancers, including New Yorker magazine writers Rich-
ard Rovers and Calvin Trill in.
"It amounted to kind of an in-depth magazine on
the Peace Corps," Peters says. "Over the years many
who knew of this operation said it should extend to
other branches of government. So often when things
go wromlg the top guy is the last to hear about it; and by
then it's too late to help."
eel li!:e a potential bas .Cr. Peters had been tossing around possibilities of ex-
Peters i;s a pudgy, 42-year-old ex-Peace Corps exec- panding his work for some time, and early in the
utivc with salt-and-popper gray hair cut about the' spring of 1967 he settled on the idea of a magazine.
sane length and style as found on an ancient That May he served notice with lack Vaughn, Shriv-
Grecian bust. :`is magazine, a cross between ;rl'> ;i U.l'.eessol', thhat he ~4':h\ p!innitl tohav.)\'i:i!hia 1
the Atlantic',:anthly, the New Republic and Ram- 'year. Ile enlisted financial sup' ort from John D.
-parts, will rl:. its fifth appearance on newsstands 1 Rockefeller TV and soon afterwards from Joseph
,next month, -;f I'oters can straighten out his difficulties Crowley, president of the New llavcn fermi:lal,
with his asso.:cd writers and artists, the Monthly to .did to his own bankroll.
nlig;_ : akke it through the first year, that dangerous At the J''111le time he was lining up capital, Peters
time for h_ew mag alines. spent his evenings :llld weekends contacting writers
a" ee, suite of rooms occupied by the Monthly is con- and editors, !~i'.tlhl'if~ pledges of stories and delineating
re(:';.cl by a labyrinthine hallway which eventually editorial policies. 1" or much of his editorial advice llo
Peters ;office: an acute oblong with bare wood relied on Roved}, 1Vaslliilgton correspondent for the
leors old ur.,:....toed, roam-colored walls. It is occu- \few Yorker and one-time assistant editor of t ha New
pied by an cc .. ,nly-:. walnut desk, 'a few chairs, :'Masses, and \\'hittlcy Ells:vorth, publisher of the New
:hrc:.'etas. 'zau?s :..:: ,~ tic, loosened slightly at the York Review of uuoks. Another source of advicc was
of an 0.,.'. b,..':oonl ::clan shirt, wash-and-wear Timothy J. Asians, a former San Francisco newspaper
4:.ou sers and i,uo skin shoes. The objects on the desk reporter who was director of the. PC-Lee Corps program
lode volumes of duck Finn and Don Quixote, in Thailand. When Peters left the Corps he took
waicl were presents r? ni Peace Corps colleagues, and Adams with him as managing editor.
7)s_ oracle eop'o:; of he Federalist, Edmund Burke The office opened on May 1 in an atmosphere~of
and '1 no Coin:mhia :ie.,k Encyclopedia. There is also national crisis, 1)roduccd partly by the rioting in the
an empty Lily coffee cup and a wrinkled pack of True
iu:~ej cigarettes; which he chain-smokes., During an
interviewc cc., out and bummed two Winstons.
%,c s, of , .s' present troubles stem from the fact
th.c he is not a professional journalist-at least he
:o't until he founded the Monthly. He was born in
C ... , . zeal, \V. : eccived an M.A. in English from
s hai:1 IIh ersity, and began his career writing
tiling co / for the J. Walter Thompson agency in
V, York. }eft to earn a law degree from the
of Virginia and then returned to Charles-
t(,i:, where he c_)crated a private law practice for three
years until 19:5'1 when he ran for the state legislature,
addition to his own campaign in Kanawha County
o : anag;ed the hresiucn.tial campaign of John F. Ken-
nedy there. B,.ih c..s:didatcs won. After one session in
the legisinturc- _,te. iclt the call of the New Frontier.
He coo= to \': hington in 1061 to join the office of
the general c~ :,.hsel os the newly created Peace Corps.
Hater in th same, year, Peace Corps director Sar-
'.e::t ,c;vivcr ?,;;;:oinLed Peters to head his new office of
evaluation, a co:ificlontial reporting service which was
make i s -:.and examinations of Corps overseas
,rod cis can co,lf idential, critical reports with the
4op echelon of the agency. The reports were written by
cities and partly by tic gerelal sense ofdcsperat on
over the Vietnam war. During the months that ful
lov: ed Peters met ni fitly with small Groups of selec ed
government officials: mostly 'right, mostly under Sy
and mostly remnants of the Kennedy era. Over paper
cups of beer and sherry they bra Lnstol I11ed the ens tis-
factory tides of American society and how best to sr:-in
them. Peters is still working on story ideas tiat 8rewv
out of these meetings, which were suspended in One
fall in order to get out the first issue by last Janu: ry'.
The cover of the first issue shows a dramatic prioto-
graph of a convoluted American flag, parts of klieg under studio lights and parts hidden inStveiitn
shadows. 'f he table of contents flourished such jour-
nalistic big -names as Murray Kellipton, the fee iter
columnist of the New York Post; David S. L'roder,
Washington Post political writer; Russell Baker, i ew
York Times columnist; Newsday publisher Bill \.o;?ers
and laugh Sisley, chief of the Time Magazine V.'e
ington bureau. The writing reflected the elements of
the magazine's founding: intellectualism and a feeling
that society was crumbling from sheer neglect. Potets
editorial credo, which appeared on the back cover,
stated in part: "111e American system is in trouble. its
not responding well enough or fast enough to our
critical national problems."
So far the Monthly has zeroed in on the President,,
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111. X1agcolcllt, slIclk mix of llea\'y and lhiht
~?.tl`; 11 U'r::;ti, i(ll) ~':'i:i 3~'Ci:, ..ail t li; daily 1)i Al- headline tyls and. crisp text
ail Q1)Vii)n5 liberal ins, it is type, resigned i.^.Si month over
by ten illelles, a disagreement wi0h eters on
\\:ls .hnscn to slit.';l st:t c;lci:lriy outlook-it:;i)i.loxi- the use or illustrative art. (Ex
to .tcs the size of ]leer.:y . nci x)liticalacademicjour- cept for the covers, the small
,c. In ius Cding applies much the photograph of the mayor of
as he usocl in his X'eaco Corps clays: Ile Boston appearing in the cur-
e. mines issues from the uoCtoal up, believing, that rent issue is the onlyillusha-
in :iaya)v on information they receive tive art the Monthly has used,)
newspapers err
from the top. T110 tone is cite of i?especiablo rnuckrak- On the other hand, Peters'
ins lack of experiencc strikes
In a story dealing, with urban transpnrCation, Peters some as an asset. In a time
when the Saturday Evening
h act his \\'1'1tCr CJi1Cc.'11iC:h::, l1Ct on the l ii'I)Gi tlTlt:nt of
Post old and established an
'I-; ns,>ortatio,l but on hi~,_IIVJ ?.y IOLLyists. if the story ,
tucnaj up rt~)Liiil~; sensational, it was a sardonically Ramparts, new and flamboy-
aic o:.aluit:ation of a powerful special i iterest ant, are heading the list of fail-
(Sat tplo. ''The financing of the Highway Pro- in g and failed magazines, the
gland \ti'as :I classic raid on the T reasuuy. In the Annals fact that Peters is gambling on
of lobbvin-., the itighwayiiico who oxecl ted this coup the Monthly suggests on the
clc,arto he listed alongside those Chinese coatrac- face of it that he is open to tlye
tors who ccmvincc(l the Clain calperors to build the kind of- innovation that hasa
Great Wall of China.") chance of success.
in addition to professional journalists, the utat a`liae the feeling among many
uses original so4lrues inclur:ind acacienlicians ::ml writ- who have come into contact
ers who are iresently involved is government. Jane, with the Monthly seems to be
Jacobs, author of The Death and Life of Great Auteri- that it is a heal y idea; and
can Cities, has conir'il)utcd, as has one of President'' that if Peters turns it into a
ixell's top rides, S tephenl Ness. There are two regular ; money-maker it will be both
;lns' `~ti v's of the :.Tess" Is written by guest jour- because and in spite of him-
enlists and gives insights into the self.
relatirnship between! the meantime, Peters
~
the press a d _ overiuuent, and "The Culture ofllu-~ In 1o 'himsellf
r.;aucracy" keeps a constaiit eye on one of leter's, seems to be en' sal
favorite target:' Peters says the magazine has : immensely.
?
met wi'th-unexpected success,
r.;; ,
?
~-/.n irea.~,ure;a against his,
original goals. With 20,000
sul)scr bars, enlisted in two di-
recd mail campair-cl.s aimed es-,
pecially toward businessmen,
politicians and political sci-
professors, and frog'..
ence
newspaper and magazine ads,
he is already halfway along
toward his subscription target
for the first year; and his
newsstand target was met on
the first issue, which sold al-
l:,ost 8,003. He says he is satis-
fied with the advertising he
has x icke`ld u`; the June issue
Will I n C l u e three major
f irnis- andom House, Amer-
loan Telephone & Telegraph
and Polaroid,
"We anticipated four years
to break even,says Peters.
it looks like a year and a
half or so."
:'song the way Peters has
with some setbacks. Some
v alters complain of a lack of
rofessioan is.n in the way Pe-
rers h._ idles them. Stories are
Wit 'caned in and then
writ back for major revisions,
scmet..aes two or three times.
it Ica c oae writer is now talk.
trig about a law suit over the
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GtlberN tree art director who