Reflections of Peace Corps in Turkish Press: Why Did They Come? Why Did They Go?

The Peace Corps, emerged as a project designed during the Cold War for presidential election promise of John F. Kennedy in 1960 and the first group was sent to Turkey in 1962 and started its activities. The arrival of the Peace Corps in Turkey, their activities and various allegations against them were discussed in detail by the Turkish press. This article aims to reveal the reflections of the presence and activities of Peace volunteers in Turkey on the Turkish press. In this study, using document analysis methods, articles about the activities of Peace Corps in newspapers and magazines with different publishing policies were examined. The Turkish press, affected by the political polarization of the period, also discussed their views on the activities of the Peace Corps in the context of their ideological stance. In the Turkish press, newspapers and magazines which had socialist publication policies such as Ant, Yön, Dönüşüm, Cumhuriyet mainly discussed that Peace Corps acted with the idea of spreading American thought and carried out spying activities. Although there were minor criticisms in mainstream newspapers such as Hürriyet and Milliyet, it was observed that publications were made on the promotion of the development activities of Peace Corps.