[2] An opponent of U.S. entry into World War II, he helped establish the America First Committee but volunteered for the United States Navy before the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor.

After Kennedy's assassination, Shriver served in the administration of Lyndon B. Johnson and helped establish several anti-poverty programs as director of the Office of Economic Opportunity from October 16, 1964, to March 22, 1968.

[2] In 1972, Democratic vice presidential nominee Thomas Eagleton resigned from the ticket, and Shriver was chosen as his replacement.

After leaving office, he resumed the practice of law, becoming a partner with Fried, Frank, Harris, Shriver & Jacobson.

He was on Canterbury's baseball, basketball, and football teams, became the editor of the school's newspaper, and participated in choral and debating clubs.

An early opponent of American involvement in World War II, Shriver was a founding member of the America First Committee, an organization started in 1940 by a group of Yale Law School students, also including future President Gerald Ford and future Supreme Court Justice Potter Stewart, which tried to keep the US out of the European war.

[16] A devout Catholic, Shriver attended daily Mass and always carried a rosary of well-worn wooden beads.

[23] Shriver also served as director of the Catholic Interracial Council, a group created to advocate for desegregation in Chicago schools.

Shriver had been courted by many Chicago Democrats, including Mayor Richard J. Daley, but ultimately chose to stay out of the election.

District Court Judge Richard B. Austin, was chosen as the replacement and went on to narrowly lose the election to incumbent Governor William Stratton.

[27][25] When John F. Kennedy ran for president, Shriver worked as a political and organization coordinator in the Wisconsin and West Virginia primaries.

It was named after a 1963 encyclical letter by Pope John XXIII that calls upon all people of good will to secure peace among all nations.

[25] However, he demurred after being asked by President Johnson to stay on and continue leading the creation of many of the aforementioned War on Poverty programs that would become part of the Great Society.

Shriver even received Johnson's blessing to make the run as part of Daley's "Dream Ticket", should he choose to do so.

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.

[35] Upon returning to the United States in 1970, Shriver was speculated to be considering challenging incumbent Democratic Governor Marvin Mandel for the Democratic nomination for the 1970 Maryland gubernatorial election, reports he did nothing to dissuade despite Mandel's sizable campaign fund and being the state's first Jewish Governor.

After traveling the state to gauge the support a potential candidacy might have, Shriver met with Mandel in the Governor's office.

[37] McGovern then selected Thomas Eagleton instead, who later resigned from the Democratic ticket following revelations of past mental health treatments.

In the months before the primaries began, political observers thought that Shriver would draw strength from legions of former colleagues from the Peace Corps and the War on Poverty programs, and he was even seen as an inheritor of the Kennedy legacy, but neither theory proved true.

[citation needed] In 1981, Shriver was appointed to the Rockefeller University Council, an organization devoted exclusively to research and graduate education in the biomedical and related sciences.

He was an investor in the Baltimore Orioles along with his eldest son Bobby Shriver, Eli Jacobs, and Larry Lucchino from 1989[40] to 1993.

"[42] Maria Shriver discusses her father's worsening condition in a segment for the four-part 2009 HBO documentary series The Alzheimer's Project called Grandpa, Do You Know Who I Am?, including describing a moment when she decided to stop trying to correct his various delusions.

[3][13][46] Shriver's family released a statement calling him "a man of giant love, energy, enthusiasm, and commitment" who "lived to make the world a more joyful, faithful, and compassionate place.

He further noted that Shriver "served as our founder, friend, and guiding light for the past 50 years" and that "his legacy of idealism will live on in the work of current and future Peace Corps volunteers.

On August 8, 1994, Shriver received the Presidential Medal of Freedom, the United States' highest civilian honor, from President Bill Clinton.

[54] Following his death, Daniel Larison wrote: Shriver was an admirable, principled, and conscientious man who respected the dignity and sanctity of human life, and he also happened to be a contemporary and in-law of Kennedy.

A pro-life Catholic, Shriver had been a founding member of the America First Committee, and more famously he was also on the 1972 antiwar ticket with George McGovern.