COMMUNIST KERALA IS EXPELLING PEACE CORPS

• Document Type: CREST
• Collection: General CIA Records
• Document Number (FOIA) /ESDN (CREST): CIA-RDP69B00369R000200240121-4
• Release Decision: RIFPUB
• Original Classification: K
• Document Page Count: 1
• Document Creation Date: December 15, 2016
• Document Release Date: October 16, 2003
• Sequence Number: 121
• Publication Date: July 16, 1967
• Content Type: NSPR

CL1 AS l-i r ~? i Gi ~Z..' ~- t~ `~
Approved For Release 2003/11/04 :CIA-RDP69B00369R000200240121-4
Communist Kerala Is Expwel~in Peace Corps
tour. If Nair has his way; the
ouster will also apply to the
By Warren Unna
Washington Post Foreign Service
" TRiVANDRUM, India-In-
dia's .Red-run state of Kerala
has .decided to' throw out its
-American Peace Corps poultry
adevelopment volunteers, the
glridc of the Peace Corps con-
~tigents in this. subcontinent,
:and. possibly the Corps' rural
,public health volunteers as
' wvell.
`The move was confiremed in
`Parliament in New Delhi re-
Gently by Deputy Prime Minis-
ter and Finance Minister Mor-
arji Desai.
"I'm the man who sadd `No,"'
?M. N. Govindan Nair, Kerala's
::Moscow-oriented Communist
1VIinister of Agriculture said in
an interview here on the ques-
`~tion of allowing the volunteers
to continue their work. "It is
'really humiliating to us to
Piave people here from far,off
countries to tell us about the
+chieken and the egg. But if
ynu are prepared to give us
some of your atomic scientists,
I'm prepared to accept them."
Nair- said the remaining 15
Peace Corps. poultry develop-~
ment volunteers, sdheduled to
remain until next July, shuold
leave by August.
Twelve left last month at
the completion of their normal
gents in Kerala; the 22 rural
public. health volunteers doing
work in family planning who
were scheduled to be replaced
by new a new group in Au-
gust, and the 20 small indus-
tries volunteers. who have
been here a year and have an-
other year to go.
When pressed further about
his antipathy to the Peace
Corps, Kerala's Minister of
Agriculture lost no time in
coming up with those three
initials, " '
"Whether they actually are
CIA or not is for the central
government and the security'
people to decide," Nair declar-
ed. "But we have it direct.
from the horse's mouth, your
magazines, that CIA is in most
of the American help"
'While Nair is a Communist
and at one end of Kerala's
United Front Coalition.
government, Minister of Edu-
cation C.H. Mohammed Koya,
leader of the ultra - con-
servative Muslim League, ac-
knowledged that he too has
his suspicions about CIA sub-
version.
`SWe think there is no neces-
sity for these people in agri-
culture. Ithink they are not
worth the trouble," Koya said
in an interview. And he is a
man who looks back fondly on
his visits to America.
la's Communist leaders; a man
who .concentrates on trade
unions now and stays out of
government, said the decision
on the Peace- Corps was "pure-
ly political. Throwing them
out provides a good popular
cause."
-Gary Brenneman, one. of
the poultry development vol-
unteers scheduled to return to
his Oakland, Calif., home thinks)
Kerala's top officials simply)
don't understand what the
peace Corps work is all about.
According to Brenneman,i,
the Indians he has been work I,
ing with would be able to con-I
tinue the program on their.
own after another year's help.
"If we lea~'e now it will end in
collapse," he predicted.
Pakistan last month let g
teers it had in a once-extensiv
"higher skills."
Until recently, Kerala ha
some 74 of the 1271 Peac
America's largest contingent:
While Indian Peace Corp
tal of New Delhi has over-a
coordination authority.
Peace Corps' two other contin-( Actually, another of Kera-
Approved For Release 2003/11/04 :CIA-RDP69B00369R000200240121-4
The "center" presumably is
aware that Kerala's Commu-
nist-led United Front govern-
ment decided to throw out the
consulting with the civil serv-
ant most concerned with their
work, M: N: Menon, State
Director of Animal Husban-
dry, aman very much in favor
of the Peace Corps staying on.
But the CIA taint has been
bothering Prime Minister In-
dira Gandhi's government in
New Delhi as well. Foreign
Minister M. C. Ghagla indicat-
ed his misgivings to this re-
porter awhile .back in citing
the "billions of dollars" CIA
has at its disposal.