[Congressional Record Volume 157, Number 11 (Wednesday, January 26, 2011)]
[Senate]
[Page S266]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




                      REMEMBERING SARGENT SHRIVER

  Mr. LEAHY. Madam President, I would like to take a moment to pay 
tribute to a hero of mine, Robert Sargent Shriver. He was a man of real 
courage, extraordinary idealism, committed to serving this country, and 
a dear friend.
  As a veteran of World War II, the founding director of the Peace 
Corps, and the driving force behind Lyndon Johnson's war on poverty, 
Sarge believed in the good things government can do for people. Among 
his many accomplishments, he gave us the Head Start program, the Job 
Corps and Legal Services for the Poor, and the Volunteers in Service to 
America. Later in life he became the U.S. Ambassador to France, and 
then president of the Special Olympics, an organization founded by his 
remarkable wife Eunice Kennedy Shriver.
  Sargent Shriver's impact on American life was profound. Through the 
many programs he championed, Sarge had a direct and lasting effect on 
the lives of millions of Americans. He was wholly committed to helping 
people and to the ideals he believed our country ought to stand for, 
and he was tireless and unrelenting in his pursuit of those goals.
  The Peace Corps, one of Sarge's most important and long-lasting 
accomplishments, enables young Americans to serve their country by 
building understanding between cultures and working to improve the 
lives of others in developing countries. Shriver's spirit lives on 
through the Peace Corps, and it is incumbent on all of us to ensure 
that the agency fulfills his vision, and the vision of President 
Kennedy.
  My friend Bono, a committed advocate in the fight against global 
poverty, was himself inspired by President Kennedy's call to action and 
by Sargent Shriver's work to put it into effect. He recently wrote an 
op-ed which appeared in the New York Times entitled, ``What I Learned 
From Sargent Shriver.'' In honor of Sarge, I ask unanimous consent that 
a copy be printed in the Record.
  There being no objection, the material was ordered to be printed in 
the Record.

                [From the New York Times, Jan. 19, 2011]

                  What I Learned From Sargent Shriver

                               (By Bono)

       The Irish are still mesmerized by the mythical place that 
     is America, but in the '60s our fascination got out of hand. 
     I was not old enough to remember the sacrifices of the great 
     generation who saved Europe in the Second World War, or to 
     quite comprehend what was going on in Vietnam. But what I do 
     remember, and cannot forget, is watching a man walk on the 
     moon in 1969 and thinking here is a nation that finds joy in 
     the impossible.
       The Irish saw the Kennedys as our own royal family out on 
     loan to America. A million of them turned out on J.F.K.'s 
     homecoming to see these patrician public servants who, 
     despite their station, had no patience for the status quo. 
     (They also loved that the Kennedys looked more WASP than any 
     ``Prod,'' our familiar term for Protestant.)
       I remember Bobby's rolled-up sleeves, Jack's jutted jaw and 
     the message--a call to action--that the world didn't have to 
     be the way it was. Science and faith had found a perfect 
     rhyme.
       In the background, but hardly in the shadows, was Robert 
     Sargent Shriver. A diamond intelligence, too bright to keep 
     in the darkness. He was not Robert or Bob, he was Sarge, and 
     for all the love in him, he knew that love was a tough word. 
     Easy to say, tough to see it through. Love, yes, and peace, 
     too, in no small measure; this was the '60s but you wouldn't 
     know it just by looking at him. No long hair in the Shriver 
     house, or rock 'n' roll. He and his beautiful bride, Eunice 
     Kennedy Shriver, would go to Mass every day--as much an act 
     of rebellion against brutal modernity as it was an act of 
     worship. Love, yes, but love as a brave act, a bold act, 
     requiring toughness and sacrifice.
       His faith demanded action, from him, from all of us. For 
     the Word to become flesh, we had to become the eyes, the 
     ears, the hands of a just God. Injustice could, in the words 
     of the old spiritual, ``Be Overcome.'' Robert Sargent sang, 
     ``Make me a channel of your peace,'' and became the song.

     Make me a channel of your peace:
     Where there is hatred let me bring your love.
     Where there is injury, your pardon, Lord,
     And where there's doubt, true faith in you.
     Oh, Master grant that I may never seek,
     So much to be consoled as to console.
     To be understood as to understand,
     To be loved as to love with all my soul.
     Make me a channel of your peace,
     Where there's despair in life, let me bring hope.
     Where there is darkness, only light,
     And where there's sadness, ever joy.

       The Peace Corps was Jack Kennedy's creation but embodied 
     Sargent Shriver's spirit. Lyndon Johnson declared war on 
     poverty but Sarge led the charge. These, and the Special 
     Olympics, were as dramatic an incarnation of the ideas at the 
     heart of America as the space program.
       Robert Sargent Shriver changed the world more than a few 
     times and, I am happy to say, changed my world forever. In 
     the late '90s, when the Jubilee 2000 campaign--which aimed to 
     cancel the debts that the poorest nations owed to the 
     richest--asked me to help in the United States, I called on 
     the Shriver clan for help and advice. What I got were those 
     things in spades, and a call to arms like a thump in the 
     back.
       In the years since, Bobby Shriver--Sarge's oldest son and--
     I co-founded three fighting units in the war against global 
     poverty: DATA, ONE and (RED). We may not yet know what it 
     will take to finish the fight and silence suffering in our 
     time, but we are flat out trying to live up to Sarge's drill.
       I have beautiful memories of Bobby and me sitting with his 
     father and mother at the Shrivers' kitchen table--the same 
     team that gazed over J.F.K.'s shoulder--looking over our 
     paltry attempts at speechifying, prodding and pushing us 
     toward comprehensibility and credibility, a challenge when 
     your son starts hanging round with a bleeding-heart Irish 
     rock star.
       Toward the end, when I visited Sarge as a frailer man, I 
     was astonished by his good spirits and good humor. He had the 
     room around him laughing out loud. I thought it a fitting 
     final victory in a life that embodied service and 
     transcended, so often, grave duty, that he had a certain 
     weightlessness about him. Even then, his job nearly done, his 
     light shone undiminished, and brightened us all.

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