Long time Democratic politician and activist Sargent Shriver has died at the age of 95.
Shriver will forever be linked to the Kennedy family through his marriage to John F. Kennedy’s sister, Eunice. But his management of the new Peace Corp program in the early 1960s will be his lasting legacy.
Shriver, whose full name was Robert Sargent Shriver Jr., married Eunice Kennedy in 1953. With the Kennedy administration, he was tapped to oversee the launching of the Peace Corps. He would then become the chief architect of President Lyndon B. Johnson’s war on poverty. Shriver would go on to be selected as George McGovern’s running mate in 1972, losing to Richard Nixon.
In the 1980s and 90s, Shriver would continue his legacy of service, serving as chairman of the board of Special Olympics International, which Eunice Kennedy Shriver founded in 1968.
Sargent Shriver and his wife had five children, including TV commentator Maria Shriver, who would marry actor (and future California governor) Arnold Schwarzenegger.
Shriver was awarded the Presidential Medal of Freedom in 1994.