Kennedy to Create Domestic `Corps'

A domestic peace corps, tentatively caled the "National Service Corps," will be one of the principal legislative recommendations in President Kennedy's State of the Union message to Congress Monday.

Present plans call for the President to issue an executive order within a few weeks launching the corps and providing it with temporary funds out of Presidential contingency monies. This will place the program into motion while it still awaits congressional enabling legislation.

Recruiting of volunteers will begin in early summer, with a force of 200 to 500 corpsmen anticipated by August. The recruits will be used in migratory labor camps, Indian reservations, mental hospitals, urban and rural slum schools, prisons, recreation centers and the like.

Urban Projects

Domestic peace corpsmen will work in a U.S. city only after the city issues an invitation and agrees to share in the cost of service projects. Like members of the Peace Corps serving overseas, the domestic corps workers will be expected to live at a similar economic standard with the low-income people they are trying to help.

A cabinet committee report recommending the creation of the domestic peace corps has just been completed, and is expected to be made public next week by the White House. The committee headed by Attorney General Robert F. Kennedy, has used a report based on PHB Mental Hospitals work in planning the mental health program of the domestic corps.