Sargent Shriver
Robert Sargent Shriver Jr. (November 9, 1915 – January 18, 2011) was an American diplomat, politician, and activist. As the husband of Eunice Kennedy Shriver, he was part of the Kennedy family. Shriver was the driving force behind the creation of the Peace Corps, and founded the Job Corps, Head Start, VISTA, Upward Bound,[2] and other programs as the architect of the 1960s War on Poverty.[3] He was the Democratic Party's nominee for vice president in the 1972 presidential election.
Sargent Shriver
Lyndon B. Johnson
Position established
Bertrand Harding
John F. Kennedy
Lyndon B. Johnson
Position established
William B. Traynor
Thomas L. Marshall
January 18, 2011 (aged 95)
Bethesda, Maryland, U.S.
Yale University (BA, LLB)
1941–1945
Born in Westminster, Maryland, Shriver attended Yale University, then Yale Law School, graduating in 1941.[2] An opponent of U.S. entry into World War II, he helped establish the America First Committee but volunteered for the United States Navy before the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor. During the war, he served in the South Pacific, participating in the Naval Battle of Guadalcanal. After being discharged from the navy, he worked as an assistant editor for Newsweek and met Eunice Kennedy, marrying her in 1953.
He worked on the 1960 presidential campaign of his brother-in-law, John F. Kennedy, and helped establish the Peace Corps after Kennedy's victory. After Kennedy's assassination, Shriver served in the administration of Lyndon B. Johnson and helped establish several anti-poverty programs as director of the Office of Economic Opportunity from October 16, 1964, to March 22, 1968.[4] He also served as the United States Ambassador to France from 1968 to 1970.[2] In 1972, Democratic vice presidential nominee Thomas Eagleton resigned from the ticket, and Shriver was chosen as his replacement. The Democratic ticket of George McGovern and Shriver lost in a landslide election defeat to Republican President Richard Nixon and Vice President Spiro Agnew. Shriver briefly sought the 1976 Democratic presidential nomination but dropped out of the race after the first set of primaries.
After leaving office, he resumed the practice of law, becoming a partner with Fried, Frank, Harris, Shriver & Jacobson. He also served as president of the Special Olympics and was briefly a part-owner of the Baltimore Orioles. He was diagnosed with Alzheimer's disease in 2003 and died in Bethesda, Maryland, in 2011.[2]
Early life and education[edit]
Robert Sargent Shriver Jr. was born in Westminster, Maryland, the younger of two sons. Shriver's parents Robert Sargent Shriver Sr. and Hilda, who had also been born with the surname Shriver, were second cousins.[5] His elder brother was Thomas Herbert Shriver. Of partial-German ancestry, Shriver was a descendant of David Shriver,[6] who signed the Maryland Constitution and Bill of Rights at Maryland's Constitutional Convention of 1776.[7] The Shriver Family 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.[8]
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 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.[9] On June 9, 2023, Shriver was inducted into the Canterbury School Athletic Hall of Fame for all three sports. After graduating from The Browning 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 a brother in the Delta Kappa Epsilon fraternity, as well as a member of Yale's Scroll and Key society.
Military career[edit]
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.[10] 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 USS South Dakota (BB-57), reaching the rank of lieutenant commander (O-4). He was awarded a Purple Heart for wounds he received during the bombardment of Guadalcanal.[11]
Family life[edit]
Shriver's relationship with the Kennedys began when he was working as an assistant editor at Newsweek after his discharge from the Navy. He met Eunice Kennedy at a party in New York, and shortly afterwards, family patriarch Joseph P. Kennedy Sr. 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.[12]
After a seven-year courtship, Shriver married Eunice Kennedy on May 23, 1953, at St. Patrick's Cathedral in New York City. She was the third daughter of Joseph Kennedy Sr. and Rose Kennedy.[13]
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.[14]
Shriver was admitted to practice law in the District of Columbia, Illinois, and New York, and at the US Supreme Court.[15]
A devout Catholic, Shriver attended daily Mass and always carried a rosary of well-worn wooden beads.[16] 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."[17]
Public service and political career[edit]
1950s[edit]
In May 1954, Shriver was appointed to the Chicago Board of Education by Chicago mayor Martin H. Kennelly.[18] On October 26, 1955, Shriver was chosen to serve as president of the Chicago Board of Education by a vote of the board.[18] Shriver would serve in the position of president for five years,[19][20] resigning from the position on October 10, 1960.[21] At the time he became president of the board, he was the second-youngest individual to hold that office, being only 39.[22] At the time, Chicago Public Schools was the second-largest school district in the United States.[22]
Shriver also served as director of the Catholic Interracial Council, a group created to advocate for desegregation in Chicago schools.[23]
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.[24] 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.
Illness and death[edit]
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.[40] 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."[41] 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.[42]
On August 11, 2009, Shriver's wife of 56 years, Eunice, died at the age of 88.[19] He attended her wake and funeral in Centerville and Hyannis, Massachusetts.[43] Two weeks later, on August 29, 2009, he also attended the funeral of her brother Ted Kennedy in Boston, Massachusetts.[44]
Shriver died on January 18, 2011, in Suburban Hospital in Bethesda, Maryland, at age 95.[3][12][45] 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."[45] President Barack Obama also released a statement, calling Shriver "one of the brightest lights of the greatest generation".[45] Aaron S. Williams, the director of the Peace Corps, said in a statement, "The entire Peace Corps community is deeply saddened by the passing of Sargent Shriver." He further noted that Shriver "served as our founder, friend, and guiding light for the past 50 years" and that "his legacy of idealism will live on in the work of current and future Peace Corps volunteers."[46] He is buried alongside his wife Eunice at St. Francis Xavier Cemetery in Centerville, Massachusetts.