State Sen. Christopher Van Hollen Jr.'s work in Annapolis draws high marks from environmentalists, so his supporters were working hard to persuade the Sierra Club to endorse him in his race for Congress. It was part of a strategy to combat the star power, political connections and money machine that characterize the family of one of Van Hollen's opponents, state Del. Mark Kennedy Shriver.

Then a top aide to Shriver's uncle, U.S. Sen. Edward M. Kennedy (D-Mass.), stepped in, and Van Hollen said he got an early lesson in the Kennedy family's reach.

Not that he needed one. Shriver, whose mother, Eunice Kennedy Shriver, is one of President John F. Kennedy's sisters, has been able to raise more money than all his opponents in the 8th Congressional District Democratic primary combined. His trademark toothy grin graced the cover of last week's Time magazine as part of a story about his famous family.

Read the full story here:

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A28056-2001Aug18.html

By John N Smart (jnsmart) on Saturday, August 25, 2001 - 8:53 pm: Edit Post

May I be so bold as to ask what the hell this story has to do with the Peace Corps?
If this site is going to become a general political free for all, I'll probably opt out
of it. I get a lot of those already, ones of
my own choosing. I joined this because it was
about Peace Corps topics that are not covered
anywhere else.

By Admin1 (admin) on Sunday, August 26, 2001 - 6:39 pm: Edit Post

The reason that we put these posts up on the Shriver family
is because Sargent Shriver was the founding Director and
his influence on the Peace Corps, even 35 years after he
left the agency, still casts a longer shadow than anything
that has happened since then.

We don't think that a person can understand the Peace Corps
without understanding something about the people and
personalities that were present at the creation - Sargent
Shriver, Warren Wiggins, Charlie Peters, Harris Wofford,
Jack Vaughn, Bill Moyers, Frank Mankiewicz, and many others.

In this specific example, we think that people may be
interested in reading about just how actively involved the
Shriver family still remains in American politics to this
day.

One of the most interesting aspects to this story is
the help that Edward Kennedy is giving Sargent Shriver's
son, Mark Shriver, in the election. This is in contrast to
Kennedy's behavior in the 1968 Presidential election when
Sargent Shriver was on the short list of Hubert Humphrey's
vice-presidential choices. According to Harris Wofford, in
his book "Of Kennedy's and Kings", it was pre-Chappaquidick
Edward Kennedy who called Humphrey (reference p 431 of the
1992 edition) and vetoed Shriver's appearance on the ticket
- the reasons are not known. Looking at how close the '68 election
was, it is interesting to speculate just how different American
History might have been with a more dynamic candidate than
Edmund Muskie on the ticket - no Nixon, no four year prolongation
of the war, no Watergate.

In the past we published articles when Mark Shriver first
declared for Congress. We published articles about Eunice
Shriver's car accident earlier this year. We published an
article about Charlie Peters when he retired as Editor of
the Washington Monthly earlier this year. We just published
an exclusive report on Richard Nixon, Joseph Blatchford and
Nixon's plan to abolish the Peace Corps back in the early
70's which you can read at:

http://PeaceCorpsOnline.org/messages/messages/2629/5228.html?998836857

We also have an entire section of this web site devoted to
past Peace Corps Directors at:

http://PeaceCorpsOnline.org/messages/messages/2629/5228.html?998836857

To us, the history of the Peace Corps and the people who
created it are indispensble to understanding how we got to
where we are today, and is one of the most important topics
that we will continue to explore.

Best Regards,


Admin1

By John N Smart (jnsmart) on Sunday, August 26, 2001 - 11:49 pm: Edit Post

While I think that the history of the Kennedy and Shriver families is interesting, I still don't think that this site should be dealing with it. Sargent Shriver was indeed important to the founding of Peace Corps, and as such, relevant, but the political activities of his offspring are not. Yes, it would have been interesting if he had run with Humphrey instead of Edmund [not Edward] Muskie, but again, such speculation is of no import in the current story of the Peace Corps. As one of my university teachers always told me, "Stick to your subject!"

By Admin1 (admin) on Thursday, September 13, 2001 - 11:39 am: Edit Post

A little more insight into why Ted Kennedy didn't support Sargent Shriver as the vice-presidential candidate in 1968 - or in 1972 - comes from the August 13, 2001 cover story on the Kennedy Family in which it states that the Kennedys were angry at Shriver because in 1968 Shriver declined to resign his post as Ambassador to France to come home to help in Robert F. Kennedy's campaign for the Presidency.