Sargent Shriver

Robert Sargent Shriver Jr. (November 9, 1915 – January 18, 2011) was an American diplomat, politician, and activist. He was a member of the Shriver family by birth, and a member of the Kennedy family through his marriage to Eunice Kennedy. Shriver was the driving force behind the creation of the Peace Corps, and founded the Job Corps, Head Start, VISTA, Upward Bound, and other programs as the architect of the 1960s War on Poverty. He also served as the United States Ambassador to France from 1968 to 1970. His elder brother was Thomas Herbert Shriver. Shriver was a member of the Shriver family that has been in Maryland since 1721 and have occupied the Union Mills Homestead. His grandfather, Thomas Herbert Shriver, guided J. E. B. Stuart to the battle of Gettysburg when Thomas was just seventeen years of age. He was also a descendant of David Shriver, who signed the Maryland Constitution and Bill of Rights at Maryland's Constitutional Convention of 1776.

He spent his high school years at Canterbury School in New Milford, Connecticut, which he attended on a full scholarship. In his freshman year at Canterbury, he befriended future brother-in-law President John F. Kennedy. He was on Canterbury's baseball, basketball, and football teams, became the editor of the school's newspaper, and participated in choral and debating clubs. On June 9, 2023, Shriver was inducted into the Canterbury School Athletic Hall of Fame for all three sports. After graduating from Canterbury School in 1934, Shriver spent the summer in Germany as part of The Experiment in International Living, returning in the fall of 1934 to enter Yale University, where he was elected chairman of the Yale Daily News and made a brother in the Delta Kappa Epsilon fraternity, as well as a member of Yale's Scroll and Key society.

Military career

An early opponent of American involvement in World War II, Shriver was a founding member of the America First Committee, an organization started in 1940 by a group of Yale Law School students, also including future President Gerald Ford and future Supreme Court Justice Potter Stewart, which tried to keep the US out of the European war. Nevertheless, Shriver volunteered for the US Navy before the attack on Pearl Harbor and said he had a duty to serve his country even if he disagreed with its policies. He spent five years on active duty, mostly in the South Pacific, serving aboard the , reaching the rank of lieutenant commander (O-4). He was awarded a Purple Heart for wounds he received during the bombardment of Guadalcanal.

Family life

Shriver's relationship with the Kennedy family began when he was working as an assistant editor at Newsweek after his discharge from the Navy. He met Eunice Mary Kennedy, the third daughter of family patriarch Joseph P. Kennedy Sr. and family matriarch Rose Kennedy at a party in New York, and shortly afterwards, the elder Kennedy asked him to look at diary entries written by his eldest son, Joseph P. Kennedy Jr., who had died in a plane crash while he was on a military mission during World War II. Shriver was later hired to manage the Merchandise Mart, part of Kennedy's business empire, in Chicago, Illinois.

After a seven-year courtship, Shriver married Eunice Kennedy on May 23, 1953, at St. Patrick's Cathedral in New York City.

They had five children: Robert Sargent "Bobby" Shriver III (born April 28, 1954), Maria Owings Shriver (born November 6, 1955), Timothy Perry Shriver (born August 29, 1959), Mark Kennedy Shriver (born February 17, 1964), and Anthony Paul Kennedy Shriver (born July 20, 1965). The Shrivers were married for 56 years, and often worked together on projects.

Shriver was admitted to practice law in the District of Columbia, Illinois, and New York, and at the US Supreme Court.

A devout Catholic, Shriver attended daily Mass and always carried a rosary of well-worn wooden beads. He was critical of abortion and was a signatory to "A New Compact of Care: Caring about Women, Caring for the Unborn", which appeared in The New York Times in July 1992 and stated that "To establish justice and to promote the general welfare, America does not need the abortion license. What America needs are policies that responsibly protect and advance the interest of mothers and their children, both before and after birth."

Public service and political career

1950s

In May 1954, Shriver was appointed to the Chicago Board of Education by Chicago mayor Martin H. Kennelly. Shriver would serve in the position of president for five years, resigning from the position on October 10, 1960. At the time he became president of the board, he was the second-youngest individual to hold that office, being only 39. At the time, Chicago Public Schools was the second-largest school district in the United States.

Shriver considered several runs for statewide office. His first consideration was for the Democratic nomination in the 1956 Illinois gubernatorial election. Shriver had been courted by many Chicago Democrats, including Mayor Richard J. Daley, but ultimately chose to stay out of the election. The primary was won by Cook County treasurer Herbert C. Paschen, who would be forced to withdraw as the nominee after becoming embroiled in scandals surrounding his work as Treasurer. District Court Judge Richard B. Austin, was chosen as the replacement and went on to narrowly lose the election to incumbent Governor William Stratton.

1960s

thumb|left|Shriver and JFK at the White House in August 1961.

In 1960, Shriver once again received serious courting by Democratic leaders in both Chicago and across the state to enter the Democratic primary for the 1960 Illinois gubernatorial election.

Shriver was credited with convincing a hesitant Kennedy to contact Coretta Scott King after her husband, prominent civil rights activist Martin Luther King Jr., was jailed for civil disobedience in Georgia in October 1960. Kennedy's phone call to Coretta Scott King was credited with helping to strengthen black support for Kennedy's candidacy.

After Kennedy's assassination, Shriver continued to serve as Director of the Peace Corps and served as Special Assistant to President Lyndon Johnson. Under Johnson, he created the Office of Economic Opportunity and served as its first director. He is known as the "architect" of the Johnson administration's "War on Poverty".

Shriver founded numerous social programs and organizations, including Head Start, VISTA, Job Corps, Community Action, Upward Bound, Foster Grandparents, Legal Services, the National Clearinghouse for Legal Services (now the Shriver Center), Indian and Migrant Opportunities, and Neighborhood Health Services, in addition to directing the Peace Corps. He was active in the Special Olympics, which was founded in 1968 by his wife Eunice.

Shriver was awarded the Pacem in Terris Peace and Freedom Award in 1967. It was named after a 1963 encyclical letter by Pope John XXIII that calls upon all people of good will to secure peace among all nations. Pacem in terris is Latin for 'Peace on Earth'.

In 1964 Shriver was considered one of the primary finalists on Johnson's shortlist to be vice president. After weighing the benefits of Shriver as the second spot on the ticket, Johnson ultimately chose Hubert Humphrey. Shriver again considered running for Governor of Illinois in the 1964 Illinois gubernatorial election. Upon returning to the United States in 1970, Shriver was speculated to be considering challenging incumbent Democratic Governor Marvin Mandel for the Democratic nomination for the 1970 Maryland gubernatorial election, reports he did nothing to dissuade despite Mandel's sizable campaign fund and being the state's first Jewish Governor. Mandel had been elected by the Maryland Legislature to finish out the term Spiro Agnew had been elected to in 1966, but resigned from after being elected Vice President in 1968. After traveling the state to gauge the support a potential candidacy might have, Shriver met with Mandel in the Governor's office. After emerging from the meeting, Shriver declined to be a candidate. Mandel recalled years later, "We had a long discussion, and when it was over, he wasn't a candidate."

Vice Presidential candidacy

During the 1972 Democratic National Convention in Miami Beach, Florida, George McGovern considered Shriver as a vice presidential candidate, but his campaign was unable to reach Shriver, who was at the time visiting Moscow, Soviet Union. McGovern then selected Thomas Eagleton instead, who later resigned from the Democratic ticket following revelations of past mental health treatments. Shriver replaced Eagleton on the ticket. The McGovern-Shriver ticket lost to Republican incumbents Richard Nixon and Spiro Agnew.

Presidential candidacy

Shriver unsuccessfully sought the Democratic presidential nomination in 1976. In the months before the primaries began, political observers thought that Shriver would draw strength from legions of former colleagues from the Peace Corps and the war on poverty programs, and he was even seen as an inheritor of the Kennedy legacy, but neither theory proved true. His candidacy was short-lived and he returned to private life.

Life after politics

thumb|Shriver and wife, Eunice, in 1999

Shriver was a partner of the Fried, Frank, Harris, Shriver & Jacobson law firm in Washington, D.C., where he specialized in international law and foreign affairs, beginning in 1971. to 1993.

Illness and death

Shriver was diagnosed with Alzheimer's disease in 2003. In 2004, his daughter, Maria, published a children's book, What's Happening to Grandpa?, to help explain Alzheimer's to children. The book gives suggestions on how to help and to show love to an elderly person with the disease. In July 2007, Shriver's son-in-law, California Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger, speaking in favor of stem-cell research, said that Shriver's Alzheimer's disease had advanced to the point that "Today, he does not even recognize his wife." Maria Shriver discusses her father's worsening condition in a segment for the four-part 2009 HBO documentary series The Alzheimer's Project called Grandpa, Do You Know Who I Am?, including describing a moment when she decided to stop trying to correct his various delusions.

On August 11, 2009, Shriver's wife of 56 years, Eunice, died at the age of 88. Two weeks later, on August 29, 2009, he attended the funeral of her brother Ted Kennedy in Boston, Massachusetts.

Shriver died on January 18, 2011, in Suburban Hospital in Bethesda, Maryland, at age 95. Shriver's family released a statement calling him "a man of giant love, energy, enthusiasm, and commitment" who "lived to make the world a more joyful, faithful, and compassionate place." He is buried alongside his wife Eunice at St. Francis Xavier Cemetery in Centerville, Massachusetts.

Legacy

In 1968, he was awarded the Laetare Medal by the University of Notre Dame, the oldest and most prestigious award for American Catholics.

In 1993, Shriver received the Franklin D. Roosevelt Freedom From Want Award. On August 8, 1994, Shriver received the Presidential Medal of Freedom, the United States' highest civilian honor, from President Bill Clinton.

In December 1993, the University of Maryland, Baltimore County created the Shriver Center in honor of Shriver and his wife. The center serves as the university's civic engagement, and applied learning organization. The Shriver Center also is home to the Shriver Peaceworker Program and the Shriver Living Learning Community.

The Job Corps dedicated a center to his name in 1998 – the "Shriver Job Corps Center" – located in Devens, Massachusetts. The National Clearinghouse for Legal Services (renamed the National Center on Poverty Law in 1995) was renamed the Shriver Center in 2002 and each year awards a Sargent Shriver Award for Equal Justice. The Shriver Center on Poverty Law has announced that it will close at the end of 2025.

Sargent Shriver Elementary School, located in Silver Spring, Maryland, is named after him.

In January 2008, a documentary film about Shriver aired on PBS, titled American Idealist: The Story of Sargent Shriver.

Following his death, Daniel Larison wrote:

<blockquote>Shriver was an admirable, principled, and conscientious man who respected the dignity and sanctity of human life, and he also happened to be a contemporary and in-law of Kennedy. Not only did Shriver represent a "link" with JFK, but he represented a particular culture of white ethnic Catholic Democratic politics that has been gradually disappearing for the last fifty years. A pro-life Catholic, Shriver had been a founding member of the America First Committee, and more famously he was also on the 1972 antiwar ticket with George McGovern. In short, he represented much of what was good in the Democratic Party of his time.

</blockquote>

Electoral history

1972 United States presidential election

Richard Nixon/Spiro Agnew (R) (inc.) – 47,168,710 (60.7%) and 520 electoral votes (49 states carried)
George McGovern/Sargent Shriver (D) – 29,173,222 (37.5%) and 17 electoral votes (1 state and D.C. carried)
John Hospers/Theodora Nathan (Libertarian) – 3,674 (0.00%) and 1 electoral vote (Republican faithless elector)
John G. Schmitz/Thomas J. Anderson (AI) – 1,100,868 (1.4%) and 0 electoral votes
Linda Jenness/Andrew Pulley (Socialist Workers) – 83,380 (0.1%)
Benjamin Spock/Julius Hobson (People's) – 78,759 (0.1%)

1976 Democratic presidential primaries

Jimmy Carter – 6,235,609 (39.27%)
Jerry Brown – 2,449,374 (15.43%)
George Wallace – 1,955,388 (12.31%)
Mo Udall – 1,611,754 (10.15%)
Henry M. Jackson – 1,134,375 (7.14%)
Frank Church – 830,818 (5.23%)
Robert Byrd – 340,309 (2.14%)
Sargent Shriver – 304,399 (1.92%)
Unpledged – 283,437 (1.79%)
Ellen McCormack – 238,027 (1.50%)
Fred R. Harris – 234,568 (1.48%)
Milton Shapp – 88,254 (0.56%)
Birch Bayh – 86,438 (0.54%)
Hubert Humphrey – 61,992 (0.39%)
Ted Kennedy – 19,805 (0.13%)
Lloyd Bentsen – 4,046 (0.03%)
Terry Sanford – 404 (0.00%)

Portrayals in film

The film Too Young the Hero (1988), about the life of Calvin Graham, features a scene during World War II in which Graham (played by Ricky Schroder) meets Shriver (played by Carl Mueller).
Al Conti portrays Shriver in the 1983 miniseries Kennedy.
He is played by David De Beck in the 2018 film Chappaquiddick.

References

External links

Sargent Shriver Peace Institute
FBI file on Sargent Shriver
Sargent Shriver National Center on Poverty Law
Video: Sargent Shriver delivering a speech about the Peace Corps in 1965