by Jules Witcover

A true public servant who never held public office but spent most of his 95 years spreading good works, good will and good cheer finally went to his rest this week. His name was R. Sargent Shriver but he was better known as a Kennedy in-law, a notoriety that nevertheless never eclipsed his own accomplishments and contributions.

Sarge Shriver, husband of the late Eunice Kennedy Shriver and brother-in-law of John, Robert and Ted Kennedy, owed much of his prominence to the clan into which he married. But he made the most of what it brought him by serving and encouraging service from Americans at home and around the world.

It was true that President Kennedy gave Shriver his first high-profile government post as director of the Peace Corps in 1961. But he soon erased any impressions of nepotism by taking to the task like a duck to water, infecting the agency with his own contagious enthusiasm, drive and charm.

Young Americans from college campuses and city streets flocked to enlist, initially summoned, to be sure, by Kennedy's own inspirational call to service in Third World and other developing nations. But Shriver's personal hands-on engagement made him a much-revered hero to the tens of thousands who served under him during his Peace Coups tenure.

After JFK died, Shriver answered the call of President Lyndon Johnson to head up his War on Poverty as head of the newly recreated Office of Economic Opportunity. There he nurtured a string of anti-poverty programs including Head Start, the Jobs Corps and VISTA, a domestic version of the Peace Corps. In each one, his personal leadership generated more eager foot soldiers.

The agency itself in time became a target of conservatives who railed against many of its community action organizations that challenged entrenched social welfare bureaucracies in cities around the country. But he persevered.

In early 1968, Johnson offered Shriver the post of U.S. Ambassador to France. It so happened that at the time Robert Kennedy was about to challenge LBJ for the Democratic presidential nomination. Although the Kennedys were not pleased that Shriver had decided to stay in the Johnson administration, he was asked to join the campaign. He told RFK he would have to think about it. Later the same day he called and said he was going to Paris, a decision that did not further endear him in the family ranks.

In 1972, Shriver dutifully accepted the party's vice-presidential nomination after Sen. Tom Eagleton, plagued by reports of earlier mental illness, resigned from the ticket headed by Sen. George McGovern. It was a lost cause.

In 1976, he sought the presidential nomination himself, after clearing it with Ted Kennedy as family protocol apparently required. Since Ted had already announced he would not run that year, Shriver said he might. When news of their meeting broke, and knowing of the past history, I went to see Kennedy and asked him: "What did Sarge say to you when he came up here to see you?" Kennedy answered: "He told me he was going to run and I wished him well."

Well, I asked the senator, "if Benito Mussolini walked in here and told you he was going to run, would you wish him well?" Kennedy laughed and shot back: "If he was married to my sister!"

Shriver, son of a prominent Maryland family, had an aristocratic manner that he labored hard to shed as he campaigned among working-class Democrats, but without great success. In one drop-by at a blue-collar bar, he jovially and memorably ordered beers for the house, then told the bartender: "And I'll have a Courvoisier!"

Shriver ran weakly behind Jimmy Carter, Morris Udall and others in the 1976 Democratic primaries, then bowed out gracefully. But his public service went on, most notably partnering with his wife in her founding and building the Special Olympics for children with intellectual disabilities for years thereafter, daily living their strong Catholic faith.

In his later years, Alzeimer's disease gradually sapped his strength and ability to continue his work, bringing his death at 95. But by that time, Sarge Shriver had already completed more than a full lifetime of a private citizen's public service.

 

Receive our political analysis by email by subscribing here



 

On Sargent Shriver | Politics

© Tribune Media Services