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Gaddi Vasquez a Poor Choice for Peace Corps

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I am a returned Peace Corps volunteer who served in Panama from 1970 to 1971. It was, as they say, the toughest job I ever had, but I am proud of what I accomplished and the change I was personally able to effect in a small rural village.

Gaddi Vasquez, President Bush’s nominee for director of the Peace Corps, is an inappropriate choice (“Ex-O.C. Official Is Bush’s Choice to Run Peace Corps,” July 26). I appreciate the fact that he is a Latino leader, but he is also a former Orange County supervisor who resigned early to technically escape both a recall and a grand jury investigation that led to formal accusations of willful misconduct against two colleagues. He was cited by the 1996 U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission report that accused the Board of Supervisors and other Orange County officials of misleading and defrauding buyers of more than $2.1 billion in municipal securities.

Rewarding him for being clever enough to avoid responsibility for wrongdoing will send an inappropriate message from the U.S. to the developing countries of the world. The director of the Peace Corps must always be someone of high moral character and integrity. Bush’s nomination of Vasquez demonstrates that the president does not understand what the Peace Corps is about.

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Joan Borsten

Studio City

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