His life of service in Camelot’s shadow

When Sargent Shriver married into the Kennedy clan, he and his in-laws embarked upon a lifelong tug of war.

Once, at the Kennedy compound in Hyannis Port, one of Shriver’s sons fell down and burst into tears. Bobby Kennedy chided the child, saying, “Kennedys don’t cry.” Shriver lifted the boy and cooed, “That’s OK, you can cry. You’re a Shriver.”

At first considered too kind and gentle (i.e., weak) to be a “real” Kennedy, Shriver soon won the family’s trust and admiration, then spent much of his adult life helping them achieve their goals: putting Jack in the White House, establishing the Peace Corps and, along the way, ignoring his own political aspirations whenever his conflicted with theirs (which they almost always did).

By marrying Eunice Kennedy in 1953, Shriver set himself upon a seesaw that would lift him to unimagined heights as a public servant -- a man who changed millions of lives around the world for the better. But the marriage also ensured that decades of accomplishments would go unheralded. One year older than John F. Kennedy, Shriver’s prime time coincided with that of both Jack and Bobby. Kennedy patriarch Joe made it clear that the only limelight destined for sons-in-law was that which reflected off his sons. And so, for more than 50 years, Shriver has been mistakenly thought of as a kind of genial, hard-working but not exactly pivotal fixture in the New Frontier.

In his later life, Shriver decided to rectify the record. Just a few years before being diagnosed with early-stage Alzheimer’s disease, he selected Scott Stossel, a young and relatively unknown magazine writer, as his official biographer. Stossel’s book, “Sarge: The Life and Times of Sargent Shriver” (Smithsonian Books), comes out Wednesday. It is the author’s first book, and the first biography of Sargent Shriver.

Stossel was 27 and Shriver was 81 when the older man phoned the younger one out of the blue and asked for a meeting. He was seeking a young, talented, independent thinker to help write the story of his life, he said. Not a fusty retrospective, but something relevant for his grandchildren’s generation, and generations beyond. Stossel’s first question (to himself, of course) was: Who would want to read it?

That was seven years ago, when the writer knew no more than anyone else about Shriver. After recording 60 hours of Shriver’s recollections, he that realized the project was not just worthwhile but essential -- that it could shed new light on the past and offer inspiration for the future. And that if he didn’t do it, it might never get done.

His concerns were more valid than he knew. Shriver’s illness would be diagnosed in 2003 and memories not captured would certainly evaporate. “A strange kind of alchemic transfer took place,” Stossel writes of the five years he spent working on the book. “I became, in effect, his external hard drive. Many of the memories, stories and facts that had been in his head were gone and had by now been downloaded into my head.”

Outwardly, though, Shriver still seems lively, if not completely connected to what’s going on. At a party in Beverly Hills last week for the Special Olympics, he tried to joke and chat with guests. And he is scheduled to speak Wednesday at a Washington launch of the biography.

Stossel spent years doing archival research, conducting hundreds of interviews with Shriver’s former colleagues, family and friends. In a recent phone interview, the author said he was “amazed” by what he learned. “I realized how little-known Shriver is, relative to how much he did. You look at his record and you see he accomplished astonishing things, many of them through sheer force of will.”

At almost 700 pages, the book shimmers with the sunny charisma, high energy and the buoyant Catholic faith that emanated from Shriver all during the Kennedy and Lyndon Johnson years, all despite the seemingly undoable tasks set for him.

JFK had been elected by mobilizing the country’s youth, calling for a new kind of government that would change the world. He called on Shriver to staff that government -- the Cabinet, the executive branch and hundreds of other posts -- with “the best and the brightest.”

The tale of how Shriver accomplished the goal, within just a few weeks, is riveting and filled with examples of his irreverent good humor and out-of-the-box inventiveness. Dozens of top talents from all walks of life and all kinds of professions, who had no reason at all to leave their jobs, were seduced by Shriver’s intellect and optimism into hopping the next plane to Washington to work.

(He even cajoled Republican Robert McNamara into leaving his new role as head of Ford Motor Co. to become Kennedy’s secretary of defense, Stossel writes.)

And the Peace Corps, it turns out, was a mere glimmer in Kennedy’s eye -- an unformed germ of an idea that the candidate casually mentioned in a speech to a crowd of frenzied college supporters. Soon, he began to get letters from would-be volunteers -- and, of course, there was no organization yet to volunteer for.

The task fell to Shriver. He was asked to formulate exactly how and where the Peace Corps would operate, how it would be legislated into being. There was a high risk associated with finding young people fit for such assignments -- and little precedent on how to train them. What’s more, even the most underdeveloped lands were not eager to host what they thought might be roving bands of neo-colonialist Americans who might cause more problems than they solved. The program, still going strong, is as much a tribute to Shriver as to Kennedy, the author writes.

Stossel, a professed skeptic and agnostic, says he came to believe that “Shriver’s optimism, energy and idealism were all bound up with his Catholic faith. It intersected with everything he did in the earthly universe. He wanted to live a life of service to humanity, no matter how difficult, dangerous or threatening that might be. Learning about his life changes the way you view the world. In some ineffable way, I’m sure he did that for me. “

Maria Shriver, first lady of California and Shriver’s only daughter, agrees. “For years, I watched children study famous people in history. I always thought they should be studying my father. In my family, everybody talked about what we are doing to change the world. And Daddy would say, how can I do all this in a responsible, ethical, honest way. And he always managed to do it. He was so ahead of his time; he talked about ‘globalization’ before anybody ever heard the word.”

She has just written a book explaining Alzheimer’s to young children -- “What’s Happening to Grandpa?” published by Little, Brown. She says the idea came from her own children’s questions about their grandpa, “and frankly, from some of my own. His illness is part of a huge health issue in this country as more people live longer.”

She says that even her 6-year-old now knows about Alzheimer’s and understands that Grandpa can get cranky or sad “because he’s always trying to remember things.”

Bill Moyers, who was 26 when he met Sargent Shriver, writes in the foreword that “no American alive has touched more lives.... He is the Christian closest, in my experience, to the imitation of Christ in a life of service.”

Colman McCarthy, in the National Catholic Reporter in 2002, wrote that Shriver had a record of public service and innovation “unmatched by any contemporary leader in or out of government.” The list of his programs, which have remained in place “while seven presidents have come and gone” includes Peace Corps, Head Start, VISTA, Job Corps, Community Action, Upward Bound, Foster Grandparents, Legal Services for the Poor and Special Olympics (which Shriver and his wife founded in 1968).

But the book in less delicate hands might easily have been titled “I Married the Mob.” It simmers with familial tension and with might-have-beens. It is filled with anecdotes Stossel gathered about a succession of Kennedys who suppressed Shriver’s political goals.

There was the Easter vacation before the 1960 elections, the book notes, when Shriver was summoned by a near-naked Joe Kennedy (who sunbathed in only a straw hat, cocoa butter and a small piece of fabric covering his privates).

At the time, Shriver had lived in Chicago for 15 years, and had become to that city what Jack Kennedy was to Boston. He was a virtual shoo-in for governor of Illinois.

“What’s this I hear about you running for governor?” Joe asked.

Shriver said he hadn’t decided yet.

Kennedy made the decision for him. “Under no circumstances are you to run.” Joe said it was to be “Jack’s year,” and that JFK would need Shriver’s help to become president.

Stossel chronicles a second incident in 1964. With the president having been assassinated, Shriver was poised to become Lyndon Johnson’s running mate. “What’s this I hear about the vice presidency?” Bobby Kennedy asked him. Again Shriver said he was undecided. Again, a Kennedy made the choice: “There’s not going to be a Kennedy on this ticket. And if there were, it would be me.” (Johnson appointed Shriver ambassador to France.)

Before the 1968 election, it appeared that Hubert Humphrey would pick Shriver as his running mate. But, Stossel writes, the Kennedys persuaded Humphrey to keep him off the ticket, fearing he might leapfrog over Ted Kennedy in the family line of succession.

When Shriver finally ran for vice president, in 1972, his moment had passed. What’s more, he showed what his detractors called an inability to relate to the Average Joe. Campaigning in a working-class bar, for example, drinkers shouted out for their favorite beers. Shriver chimed in, “Make mine a Courvoisier.”

Stossel, now a senior editor at the Atlantic Monthly, makes the case that Shriver has no regrets; he may not have been a politician at heart. Before Shriver’s illness started to take its toll, the author asked him about the roads not taken.

“He was very wistful when talking about the Chicago years. But he seemed grateful to have chosen the roads he did. He is proud of what he accomplished.”