Peace Corps Director
After four years as Country Director for South Korea, O'Donnell was offered a job in Peace Corps Headquarters in Washington DC as director of administration and finance. He was made acting deputy director, and then, in July 1971, Director of the Peace Corps.
On January 4, 1972 Joseph H. Blatchford, director of Action, the agency that oversaw the Peace Corps, ordered a halt in signing up volunteers and instructed O'Donnell to prepare plans to terminate about 4,000 volunteers on duty in 55 countries. Blatchford wanted the plans so that the volunteers can be returned to the United States by the end of March. Congress had refused to appropriate the $82 million requested by President Nixon for the Peace Corps. Instead, it cut funds to a level that one agency source described as "just one step above putting us out of business altogether." Conservative Louisiana Democrat Otto Passman wanted to kill the Peace Corps. "It was a pivotal time. Had Congressman Passman’s efforts succeeded, the Peace Corps would have had to recall thousands of volunteers, breaking contracts and commitments with communities and countries around the world," said O'Donnell. During the hearings before Congress, O'Donnell showed how the Peace Corps' budget amounted to about one-quarter the price for a single jet fighter but Congress continued strip the Peace Corps' funding. In the end, the money to allow Peace Corps to continue its overseas programs came from an unlikely source - Richard Nixon. "Had the Nixon White House not intervened, transferring funds from other overseas programs to the Peace Corps, the Peace Corps could not have continued without serious repercussions. The effects would have been devastating. Thankfully, our case prevailed," O’Donnell says.
O'Donnell believed strongly in a non-career Peace Corps. Most staff positions in the Peace Corps follow a five year rule but O'Donnell, as a presidential appointee, agreed to a one-year extension and left six years to the day after he signed up.
O'Donnell continues his interest and service in the Peace Corps. O'Donnell's daughter Megan served as a Peace Corps Volunteer in Nepal. His granddaughter Allison served as a Peace Corps Volunteer in Honduras. O'Donnell serves as a member of the Advisory Counsel to the National Peace Corps Association.
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