Sargent 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.
40 Facts About Sargent Shriver
2.
Sargent Shriver was the Democratic Party's nominee for vice president in the 1972 presidential election.
3.
Sargent Shriver worked on the 1960 presidential campaign of his brother-in-law, John F Kennedy, and helped establish the Peace Corps after Kennedy's victory.
4.
Sargent Shriver served as the United States Ambassador to France from 1968 to 1970.
5.
In 1972, Democratic vice presidential nominee Thomas Eagleton resigned from the ticket, and Sargent Shriver was chosen as his replacement.
6.
The Democratic ticket of George McGovern and Sargent Shriver lost in a landslide election defeat to Republican President Richard Nixon and Vice President Spiro Agnew.
7.
Sargent Shriver briefly sought the 1976 Democratic presidential nomination but dropped out of the race after the first set of primaries.
8.
Sargent Shriver served as president of the Special Olympics and was briefly a part-owner of the Baltimore Orioles.
9.
Sargent Shriver was diagnosed with Alzheimer's disease in 2003 and died in Bethesda, Maryland, in 2011.
10.
Sargent Shriver spent his high school years at Canterbury School in New Milford, Connecticut, which he attended on a full scholarship.
11.
Sargent Shriver was on Canterbury's baseball, basketball, and football teams, became the editor of the school's newspaper, and participated in choral and debating clubs.
12.
An early opponent of American involvement in World War II, Sargent Shriver was a founding member of the America First Committee, an organization started in 1940 by a group of Yale Law School students, including future President Gerald Ford and future Supreme Court Justice Potter Stewart, which tried to keep the US out of the European war.
13.
Nevertheless, Sargent 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.
14.
Sargent Shriver was awarded a Purple Heart for wounds he received during the bombardment of Guadalcanal.
15.
Sargent Shriver met Eunice Kennedy at a party in New York, and shortly afterwards, family patriarch Joseph P Kennedy Sr.
16.
Sargent Shriver was later hired to manage the Merchandise Mart, part of Kennedy's business empire, in Chicago, Illinois.
17.
Sargent Shriver was the third daughter of Joseph Kennedy Sr.
18.
Sargent Shriver was admitted to practice law in the District of Columbia, Illinois, and New York, and at the US Supreme Court.
19.
In May 1954, Shriver was appointed to the Chicago Board of Education by Chicago mayor Martin H Kennelly.
20.
On October 26,1955, Sargent Shriver was elected president of the Chicago Board of Education by a vote of the board.
21.
Sargent Shriver would serve in the position of president for five years, resigning from the position on October 10,1960.
22.
Sargent Shriver served as director of the Catholic Interracial Council, a group created to advocate for desegregation in Chicago schools.
23.
Sargent Shriver was speculated to be a potential Democratic candidate for the 1960 Illinois gubernatorial election, but did not run.
24.
When brother-in-law John F Kennedy ran for president, Shriver worked as a political and organization coordinator in the Wisconsin and West Virginia primaries.
25.
Sargent Shriver has been credited with convincing a hesitant Kennedy to contact Coretta Scott King after her husband, prominent civil rights activist Martin Luther King, was jailed for civil disobedience in Georgia in October 1960.
26.
Sargent Shriver is known as the "architect" of the Johnson administration's "War on Poverty".
27.
Sargent 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, Indian and Migrant Opportunities and Neighborhood Health Services, in addition to directing the Peace Corps.
28.
Sargent Shriver was active in the Special Olympics, which was founded in 1968 by his wife Eunice.
29.
Sargent Shriver was awarded the Pacem in Terris Peace and Freedom Award in 1967.
30.
Sargent Shriver served as US Ambassador to France from 1968 to 1970, becoming a quasi-celebrity among the French for bringing what Time magazine called "a rare and welcome panache" to the normally sedate world of international diplomacy.
31.
The McGovern-Sargent Shriver ticket lost to Republican incumbents Richard Nixon and Spiro Agnew.
32.
Sargent Shriver's candidacy was short-lived and he returned to private life.
33.
Sargent Shriver retired as partner in 1986 and was then named of counsel to the firm.
34.
In 1981, Sargent Shriver was appointed to the Rockefeller University Council, an organization devoted exclusively to research and graduate education in the biomedical and related sciences.
35.
Sargent Shriver was an investor in the Baltimore Orioles along with his eldest son Bobby Shriver, Eli Jacobs, and Larry Lucchino from 1989 to 1993.
36.
Sargent Shriver attended her wake and funeral in Centerville and Hyannis, Massachusetts.
37.
Sargent Shriver died on January 18,2011, in Suburban Hospital in Bethesda, Maryland, at age 95.
38.
In 1993, Shriver received the Franklin D Roosevelt Freedom From Want Award.
39.
Sargent Shriver was an admirable, principled, and conscientious man who respected the dignity and sanctity of human life, and he happened to be a contemporary and in-law of Kennedy.
40.
Not only did Sargent 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.