Peace Corps Director
In 1968 Blatchford won the Republican nomination for the House of Representatives from the Los Angeles harbor district but lost the general election in a heavily Democratic district to Glenn M. Anderson in a very close race losing with 48.1% of the vote to Anderson's 50.7%.
In May 1969 Blatchford was appointed Peace Corps director by President Richard Nixon. At Blatchford's confirmation hearings he was questioned closely on his partisan political ambitions but there was no challenge to his qualifications for the post of Peace Corps Director. Blatchford was sworn in on May 5, 1969. "Joe Blatchford, throughout his private career, has had a tremendous interest in this kind of activity, particularly in Latin America," said President Nixon at the swearing in ceremony. "I am very privileged to have him as a member of the administration in this vitally important function. He has the responsibility, despite his very young years, to come up with new ideas. He has the opportunity to develop new programs and those programs will receive the very highest priority within the administration."
Read more about this topic: Joseph Blatchford
Famous quotes containing the words peace, corps and/or director:
“It is open to a war resister to judge between the combatants and wish success to the one who has justice on his side. By so judging he is more likely to bring peace between the two than by remaining a mere spectator.”
—Mohandas K. Gandhi (1869–1948)
“Many a woman shudders ... at the terrible eclipse of those intellectual powers which in early life seemed prophetic of usefulness and happiness, hence the army of martyrs among our married and unmarried women who, not having cultivated a taste for science, art or literature, form a corps of nervous patients who make fortunes for agreeable physicians ...”
—Sarah M. Grimke (1792–1873)
“When General Motors has to go to the bathroom ten times a day, the whole country’s ready to let go. You heard of that market crash in ‘29? I predicted that.... I was nursing a director of General Motors. Kidney ailment, they said; nerves, I said. Then I asked myself, “What’s General Motors got to be nervous about?” “Overproduction,” I says. “Collapse.””
—John Michael Hayes (b. 1919)