Ruppe came under heavy pressure from within the Reagan Administration to politicize her top staff in Washington and to choose only Republican loyalists as Country Directors overseas. In 1981, Ruppe appointed ten country directors who had been selected by the Carter Administration over White House objections. In August 1982, Reagan appointed Edward A. Curran to be Peace Corps deputy director. Prior to this appointment, Curran had served as associate director of White House personnel and as the director of the National Institute of Education. At the Peace Corps, Curran attempted to carry out Reagan Administration policy but Ruppe responded by stripping him of most of his staff and official duties, including authority as acting director in her absence. "Loret's strategy is to make him so miserable that he'll quit," said one Peace Corps employee. "We took Peace Corps out of the pit of politics and made it non-partisan. It must always signify Americans pulling together for peace," said Ruppe. Controversy over expansion in Central America On September 24, 1984, the New York Times reported that the Peace Corps planned to double the number of volunteers serving in Honduras, Guatemala, Costa Rica and Belize to 1,200 workers over the next three years. This move was considered controversial by many returned Peace Corps volunteers who said that it politicized the Peace Corps by bolstering Reagan's fight against communism in Central America. "They have declared the Peace Corps an instrument of U.S. foreign policy and a tool of the Reagan Administration," asserted Francine Dionne, spokesman for the Returned Peace Corps Volunteers Committee on Central America. "Honduras already is running over with volunteers, and with the introduction of American troops, the place is swarming with Americans." Other returned volunteers disagreed. Senator Paul Tsongas who served as a Peace Corps Volunteer in Ethiopia in the 1960s said "It's important to demonstrate to the countries that we can do more than just send arms." However Tsongas added that he "strongly objected" to ideology lectures being given to new volunteers. Appeal for volunteers in Africa On January 15, 1985, Ruppe issued a nationwide appeal for 600 volunteers to begin famine relief and agricultural work in Mali, Zaire, Lesotho and Niger. The Peace Corps received more than 5,000 inquiries, the largest number since the early 1960s. Ruppe announced that teams of 5 to 10 volunteers would work with small-scale farmers on land preparation, water supply, storage and preservation