John Peter Grothe, CCAS PhD ’70

John Peter Grothe, CCAS PhD ’70, passed away June 16 in Los Altos, Calif.

Born in San Francisco on May 28, 1931 to Walter and Dorothy Grothe, he was raised in Hillsborough, Calif. His proudest achievement was drafting the original Peace Corps legislation and giving it the name “The Peace Corps” in 1960 when he worked as Foreign Relations Advisor and Speech Writer for Senator Hubert H. Humphrey. In 1961 he was appointed deputy director, U.N. Division of the U.S. Peace Corps; he subsequently was a Peace Corps consultant for cross-cultural training and program evaluation.

For the past 31 years Dr. Grothe was an adjunct professor at the Graduate School of International Policy Studies, Monterey Institute of International Studies. Prior he taught at San Jose State University, Odense University in Denmark, and State University of New York., Stony Brook. He was a visiting research scholar in Sweden and Norway. He lectured in over 51 countries, 26 of those for the U.S. Information Agency. In his lifetime he traveled to 134 countries and had hoped to see all 193 before he died. He spoke Russian, Norwegian, Swedish, German and Spanish.

Dr. Grothe was the author of “To Win the Minds of Men – a Study of the Propaganda War in East Germany” and wrote numerous scholarly articles. He served as president of the Northern California Political Science Association. He had a longstanding commitment to the American Field Service as an advisor, leader, and volunteer.

Read the full tribute in the San Francisco Chronicle.

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