JAMIE RICHARDSON: The JFK35 podcast is made possible through generous support from the Blanche and Irving Laurie Foundation.
EILEEN MCNAMARA: She held every president to the same standard she held her brother, which is, you will not ignore this population.
MATT PORTER: Historians have debated for years which Kennedy family member left more of a mark on the world, but one name that you don't often hear in that conversation is Eunice Kennedy Shriver.
JAMIE RICHARDSON: As Eunice Kennedy Centennial takes place this weekend on July 10th, we'll take a look back at the legacy she left behind for millions of intellectually and physically disabled persons and their families across the country and the world.
MATT PORTER: And we'll discuss why Eunice, not her brothers, may deserve the top spot when it comes to the Kennedy who changed the world. Next, on JFK35.
JOHN F. KENNEDY: And so my fellow Americans, ask not what your country can do for you, ask what you can do for your country.
MATT PORTER: Hello I'm Matt Porter.
JAMIE RICHARDSON: And, I'm Jamie Richardson. Welcome to JFK35. Today, we want to focus on a member of the Kennedy family who dedicated their life to the public good, was an excellent student of politics, as well as a campaigner, and left a long legacy of making things better for millions in our country and around the world.
And while that description fits a number of the Kennedys, including JFK himself, his brothers Bobby and Ted, the person we're talking about today is their sister Eunice. The fifth child of Joe and Rose Kennedy.
MATT PORTER: Eunice Kennedy, just like her famous brothers, was not to be underestimated. Historians, and her own children, say Eunice was as tough and fierce as they came. And despite living at a time where women were expected to follow, Eunice led on many issues, including making services available for the physically and intellectually disabled in our country. Later, at the end of this episode, we'll hear from Eunice herself, when she spoke at the JFK Library in 2007.
But, joining us now is author and journalist Eileen McNamara, who recently wrote a complete biography on Eunice, titled Eunice, the Kennedy who changed the world. Eileen, thanks for joining us.
EILEEN MCNAMARA: I'm delighted to be here.
MATT PORTER: Eileen, in your book title, you call Eunice the Kennedy who changed the world. You know, it's an interesting subtitle that could apply to many of the Kennedys, particularly the three brothers, John, Robert, and Ted. Why do you say Eunice is the Kennedy who changed the world?
EILEEN MCNAMARA: Well, if you think about the most lasting legacy of any member of that family, I think I can defend my argument that Eunice is the one who really left us with a changed national landscape. She was, after all, one of the great architects of a major civil rights movement in the United States in the second half of the 20th century, the fight for disability rights. We remember her, of course, as the founder of Special Olympics, but that's just a fraction of what she did in the course of her lifetime.
MATT PORTER: So, we know the sons of Joseph and Rose Kennedy, there were extremely high expectations set for all of the children in their lives and careers. This didn't go unnoticed by Eunice, who, I believe you said in your book, wrote to her father. She felt, "You're are advising everyone else in that house in their career, so why not me?" What were the expectations of the daughters? And, how did Eunice react to not just meet, but maybe exceed what was expected?
EILEEN MCNAMARA: Well, she knew what the answer to that letter to her father would be. It wasn't that he didn't see Eunice or her sisters, but they were largely decorative accessories behind the political careers of their brothers. He didn't see them as people who could have political careers on their own. So, Eunice's response to being overlooked was to stop asking for power and to simply take it.
So, she took over control of the Kennedy Foundation, which was the charity that the family had set up in the wake of Joe Jr.'s death, in World War II. And, it's interesting. If you look at the stationery for the Joseph P. Kennedy Jr., Foundation, over the course of decades, there's always a very interesting title at the top of who is the President of that foundation.
For a while, it was Senator John F. Kennedy. After he was elected president of the United States, the president of the foundation was Robert F. Kennedy, the Senator from New York. And finally, Senator Ted Kennedy of Massachusetts. And, Eunice was always listed as the executive Vice President, and it's a hilarious misnomer.
None of the Kennedy men had anything to do with the running of the Kennedy Foundation. It was hers, from the moment that she wrested control of it from her father. And, she used it as an engine of social change. She took Joe Kennedy's charity, and she took millions of his dollars, and she funneled it all into research on the causes of intellectual disabilities.
At the time she did that in the late 50s, the federal government spent exactly zero dollars on that kind of research. So, she turned the Kennedy Foundation money to that end.
JAMIE RICHARDSON: So, in that vein, Eunice pushed President Kennedy, when he was in office, to be an advocate for people, who today, we would say have mental and intellectual disabilities. I know Rosemary, one of her sisters, their siblings, had an intellectual disability. Why was it that Eunice, above all the other children, rose so passionately to the issue?
EILEEN MCNAMARA: Well, I think from the time that Eunice was a little girl, her mother essentially assigned her Rosemary as her special care. So, she taught Rosemary how to swim, she taught her how to play tennis, she took her on all those sailing races. She was very much involved in the daily life of her older sister. She was younger by three years than Rosemary.
So, they had a special relationship, I think, all of their lives. One that she wouldn't always have chosen, to be her big sister's protector, but it was one that she accepted. That was her role.
MATT PORTER: Some say, including you in your book, that Joseph Kennedy worried about the stigma that Rosemary's illness, that it could affect his son's political ambitions. So, she was sent away to be cared for, eventually, by the Sisters of Saint Francis of Assisi at the Saint Coletta School for Exceptional Children in Wisconsin.
Now, there was little mention of Rosemary for many, many years until, again, it was, I believe, Eunice who began to write her back into the family of biography. Tell us about that. And, why do you think that was?
EILEEN MCNAMARA: That's absolutely correct. I mean, Joe Kennedy didn't just write her out of the family biography. When she was institutionalized, her siblings were told that they were to have no contact with her. And as in everything else that Joe Kennedy required of his children, they did as they were told. So, for years she languished there, without any therapy and without any visits from her family.
It wasn't until Joe Kennedy lost his powerful voice in a stroke in 1961, that Eunice Kennedy Shriver found her voice and she brought Rosemary back into the heart of that family. Joe never saw his daughter again, but she stayed with the Shrivers just outside of the Kennedy compound in their House on Atlantic Avenue, whenever a summer rolled around. And in the winters, she brought Rosemary from Wisconsin to Washington for six week stays at a time. They weren't casual visits.
She really took responsibility for Rosemary. It was Eunice who made sure that she got the therapy that she hadn't gotten for 20 years. And, it's important to note that Rosemary was born with mild intellectual disabilities. If you look at the films that are stored at the Kennedy Library of their life in London, when Joe Sr. was the ambassador to the Court of St James, you'll see Rosemary at the garden party on July 4th mingling with guests, chatting amiably. She doesn't have a minder. She was able to converse.
Was she, what we then called, slow? Yes. She was slow. Rosemary's real problems began when her father made a misguided decision to have her lobotomized. And, he did that when she was 23 years old in 1941. And, he didn't do it because she had, what we then called, mental retardation. He did it because she had started to lash out.
She was a very angry young woman and she was a large woman. And, she struck out at her parents and her grandparents. And, he thought this experimental surgery might calm her rages. Well, it did do that, but it also left her unable to walk or talk.
MATT PORTER: And, do we have records of Eunice writing about after the fact or how she felt? Because, she clearly felt very strongly by her actions. Do we have anything in her writings that show how she felt?
EILEEN MCNAMARA: Yes, of course. Again, once her father was incapacitated, we get to hear her voice. She wrote a piece in 1962 in the Saturday Evening Post that, essentially, outed the fact that there was a person with intellectual disabilities in the Kennedy family. And, she wrote a story about the lack of resources provided by the federal government to help these people. And of course, by then, she had already engineered that the Kennedy administration would be providing those resources to people with intellectual disabilities.
This was not a cause that Senator Kennedy had ever championed while he was representing Massachusetts in the Senate. But before he took office in the White House, Eunice made him commit to creating, what was then called, a Presidential Panel on Mental Retardation, to address that lack of attention.
MATT PORTER: And, I think we have a lot of evidence, just to say one more question on this about intellectual disabilities. Since JFK passed that first law that was pushed by Eunice, there have been 116 pieces of legislation from Congress to help people with intellectual disabilities and their families. And of course, we've had more than 5 million people take part in the Special Olympics founded by Eunice in 170 countries. How would you describe the legacy here, and Eunice's part in it, to help these particular kinds of people struggling with these types of disabilities?
EILEEN MCNAMARA: Well, it's easy to forget, from our perch today, that it wasn't until 1975 that a child had a federal right to a seat in a public school classroom, if they had intellectual disabilities. All of that legislation that you referenced has Eunice Shriver's fingerprints all over it.
Her influence didn't end in the Kennedy administration. Every president that followed Kennedy in office took her phone calls, listened to her, took her advice. The Presidential Panel on, what we now call, Intellectual and Developmental Disabilities still exists. And, it exists because, throughout her life, she held every president to the same standard she held her brother, which is, you will not ignore this population.
JAMIE RICHARDSON: And then, getting back to the family and Eunice's youth and formative years, what made her different from her other siblings? And, was there a different relationship she had with her sisters versus her brothers? It seems like the brothers were on one track and the girls were there, as you mentioned, I think, decoration or support of those activities.
EILEEN MCNAMARA: She had political ambitions of her own. Of all the Kennedy sisters, it was only Eunice who got a serious university education. Most of the girls were sent to convent schools, as Eunice was initially. She went to Manhattanville for three semesters, at the beginning of her college career, but it was Jack who urged her to transfer to Stanford.
And, she graduated from Stanford University and she graduated as a well-educated woman with a lot of political ambitions of her own. And, I don't think that was duplicated in her sisters. What ambitions they might have had? Pat was interested in the law and in business and finance. Jane, apparently, at one point, thought she might like to become a nurse or a doctor, even. Joe discouraged those ambitions, that they were unseemly for women.
Eunice, this one example in her life, chose not to listen to her father. She knew she would never have the stage that her brothers had, but she was determined that she would wield as much influence behind the stage, using her father's money and her brother's political influence to change the world for an enormous population. Not just in the United States, but around the globe. And, she did that.
MATT PORTER: Eunice was born at a time that, we talk about the Mad Men age. This idea where men sort of dominated most parts of the professional life. Women weren't expected to be in those areas. How did Eunice respond to that? And, how did she still have so much success breaking through?
EILEEN MCNAMARA: Well, she would never have described herself as a feminist. That's for sure. It's ironic. During the rise of the feminist movement in the 1960s, you could open the Ladies' Home Journal or Redbook or any of the women's magazines and the likelihood is you'd find an article by Eunice, extolling the virtues of motherhood and warning women against going into the workplace and neglecting their duties at home. This is a woman who was never home.
She reported to the Kennedy Foundation every day. She traveled around the world to spread the gospel of Special Olympics, to introduce children with disabilities to the world of sport, that she loved so much in her own life. So, she preached one thing, but she practiced a very different kind of life. She was, indeed, a feminist, whether she called herself one or not.
MATT PORTER: It's really interesting that point, to see that juxtaposition. And, we know that, in at least some of her brother's campaigns, from John F. Kennedy to her brother Ted. She was part of some of those campaigns and worked on those campaigns. What was that like for her? And, did she revel in that type of activity, like her brothers seemed to?
EILEEN MCNAMARA: I think she would have preferred to be the candidate, frankly. But, yes, of course. And, she didn't just participate. She was the architect, for instance, of those famous Kennedy tea parties, that began when Jack ran for the United States Senate for Massachusetts in 1952. And of course, they continued right through Ted Kennedy's campaigns in Massachusetts until his death in 2009.
The Kennedy men scoffed at the idea that they would have these tea parties, where women voters could meet Jack Kennedy's sisters, and his very famous mother, because she was the wife of the ambassador to the Court of St James. But, they were wrong. They wanted to take that money and spend it on beer busts for veterans of World War II. The men, obviously.
But they were lines that snaked around Harvard Square, the first Tea Party that they had at the Commander Hotel in Cambridge. So, she not only proved to be right, she created one of the lasting political strategies that we associate with the Kennedy family.
MATT PORTER: Eunice, being such a strong woman, she knew what she wanted to do and she did it. I think, in the 1960s, if she got married to certain people, some husbands may be thrown off by that willingness or want to get out there in the professional career and the political landscape. How was the relationship with Sarge and Eunice? Did they go well together? Where they what we would, maybe, call a power couple these days?
EILEEN MCNAMARA: Well, I think the world probably saw them that way. They were a wonderful partnership. But, the reality is that Eunice wanted to be a nun and her father said that that was an ambition that was not going to be fulfilled. He was focused on getting Jack Kennedy elected as the first president of the United States, who was a Roman Catholic. Can't you just imagine his 5 foot 9 sister in a full black habit standing beside him? I think that was not in Joe Kennedy's plans.
So, she chose, I think, this vocation because she saw that the one place where women in her world had real power, and who ran things, where the nuns. She worked as a social worker all her life from the time she graduated from Stanford. She worked at a prison for women in West Virginia. She went to Washington before Jack Kennedy did. When he arrived as a freshman Congressman, she was already running a commission on juvenile delinquency for the US Justice Department.
The fact of the matter is, if in 1947 or 48 you were to pick up the Washington Times Herald or the Washington Post and you saw the name Kennedy in a headline, that was an article about Eunice and her campaign on behalf of juvenile offenders. It wasn't about Jack, who was a pretty lackluster member of the United States House when he first went to Washington.
She married Sargent Shriver after a seven year courtship on his part. He adored her. Among the private papers that Eunice's children gave me access to, were all of his love letters to her, which he had compiled into a booklet, so that she would always keep them. There were, of course, no return letters from Eunice to Sarge.
MATT PORTER: Oh, wow.
EILEEN MCNAMARA: She loved him dearly. She was not a romantic, shall we say. She married Sargent Shriver because, basically, her father picked him for her. When she insisted that she would rather become a nun, he called his friend Ted Hesburgh, who just happened to be the new president of Notre Dame. And said, Father Hesburgh, you need to call Eunice down to Notre Dame and you need to tell her she does not have a vocation to become a nun.
I've heard that story from, about, a half a dozen people I interviewed for this book. And, Father Hesburgh had never confirmed it, until I called him at Notre Dame. He was in his late 90s, and his response to the question was, oh, what the hell, Eileen, they're all dead. And in fact, he confirmed that he had told Eunice that, if she had a vocation, it was to marry Sargent Shriver and have his children.
Why did he do that? I certainly asked him. And he said, because I knew that with their devout Catholicism they would be a great partnership for social justice in the world. And of course, they were.
JAMIE RICHARDSON: In a way, that's so heartbreaking that she has these aspirations and then her father's just like, no, no, no, no. Do this, do this. And, it can be hard to speculate about where she would be today, but let's do it. So, if she were born in the second half of the 20th century, rather than the first, what do you think she could have done? Or would she be in office? I don't know. Somebody on Twitter who's making waves fighting with people. Or what would our Eunice of the 21st century be doing?
EILEEN MCNAMARA: I think she'd be doing, pretty much, what she was doing in the mid-20th Century. She'd be kicking down doors, all over the world, on behalf of her constituency. I don't think she would have been elected to public office. And, not because she's a woman, but because she was a pain in the ass, frankly.
She was a woman who wanted to get things done. And, when you are that kind of a woman, particularly in mid-20th Century America, you ruffle a lot of feathers. And, she did and she didn't care. So, she didn't have the politics that you would need, in order to smooth things over to run for public office, I don't think. But in a way, she's evidence that you don't have to be in public office to make an enormous difference in the world, if you're willing to work as hard as Eunice worked.
JAMIE RICHARDSON: Today, we have the first female Vice President in Kamala Harris, and last summer people were talking about the women who came before to blaze that trail, everyone from Eleanor Roosevelt, Shirley Chisholm, Geraldine Ferraro, Hillary Clinton. Would you add Eunice to that list and why? Or why not?
EILEEN MCNAMARA: I, certainly, wouldn't add her to that list. And, why? Because Eunice Kennedy Shriver, to me, is exhibit A of how easy it is to write women out of history. I mean, how many biographies do we have of Bobby and Teddy and Jack? And, I wrote one of Eunice and it was 30 years overdue. I think she was a remarkable political force in this country, and there are a lot of women just like her waiting to be recognized.
MATT PORTER: Eileen, thank you so much for your talk about Eunice. And, it was really interesting to talk about a woman who really affected history in the subtext, someone who we don't think about right away. But when you start to follow the breadcrumbs, you realize she was there the whole way. So, thank you so much for joining us.
EILEEN MCNAMARA: You're welcome. You might even say, she changed the world.
MATT PORTER: Answering my question. Thank you, Eileen.
EILEEN MCNAMARA: You're welcome.
JAMIE RICHARDSON: Thank you so much.
You can hear more from Eileen and other historians about Eunice Shriver this Saturday, July 10th at 7:00 PM Eastern in a virtual celebration of Eunice's Centennial. The John Fitzgerald Kennedy National Historic Site and Friends of the JFK Birthplace are partnering with Special Olympics Massachusetts, the Eunice Shriver Center at UMass Medical School, and others for the program. Visit the JFK National Historic Site's home page for more details at www.nps.gov/jofi.
Next, we're joined by Tim Shriver, one of Eunice's five children. Tim has been carrying on his mother's legacy, serving now as a Chairman of the Board of Special Olympics. And like his mother, he's been a longtime advocate of children with intellectual and developmental disabilities. Tim, thanks for joining us.
TIM SHRIVER: Thanks for having me.
JAMIE RICHARDSON: And, we're so excited we're celebrating the centennial of, your mother, Eunice Shriver's birth on July 10th. And, just to get right into it, what was it like to grow up with a mother like Eunice?
TIM SHRIVER: Just to get right into it, intense. You know, my mom was fierce, determined, passionate, funny, smart, driven. All at the same time. There was no sitting on the couch, there was no rest, there was note taking stock with my mom. She was from the pool to the football field, from the football field to the dinner table, which was its own form of sport and art. From the dinner table to homework, homework to bed, bed to mass at first thing in the morning, and the day just kept going, obviously, as a little kid, in school.
But, my mom was like, I think, her brothers and sisters, supremely committed to making a difference. She felt like her purpose in life, she knew it clearly. And, I think one of the great things she gave us, and I think her brothers did this for their kids, too, was a real sense of purpose. There's a lot of research now about how important purpose is in life. It helps us stay emotionally happier, it helps us feel motivated and driven at work, it helps us stay out of some pitfalls, when you have a strong purpose.
And, I would say that my mom, maybe more than anything, she had faith, she had family, she had drive, but she really combined them all with a real sense of her own purpose in life. And, I think that was very helpful, to us kids.
JAMIE RICHARDSON: And, what did she emphasize? There's purpose as well, but anything else she emphasized to you and your siblings growing up?
TIM SHRIVER: Well, I'd say many things. Loyalty. She emphasized loyalty to your family, to the causes you cared about. Faith. She was very committed to the Catholic tradition and to Christianity, and in particular to Mary, the mother of Jesus. So, she went to mass every day and believed deeply in her faith.
She was very committed and she emphasized action. Get things done. Make a difference. Don't talk, do. Don't listen to experts, listen to average people. Don't wait. When you can't find the money or the resources, get volunteers. She was a person of action. She was deeply committed to women. In a way, I don't think I really understood as a kid, because she was just my mom and she was fierce and powerful and everywhere, so I just figured that's the way things were.
But as I grew up, I started to understand how much of that was a reaction against being overlooked, herself, and feeling like she wasn't as important as her brothers. So, she'd often say to me, OK, come on, now. Let's us girls have a separate meeting. And I'd be like, wait a minute, that's not fair.
But, the point was she really wanted to empower women and she wanted to support and encourage women to do whatever they wanted to do. Yes, to be moms. Yes, to be sisters and wives, and all these other relational roles, but also to pursue their passions and interests in whatever way they thought to be powerful. She was very, very powerful, if I can use that word. So, she taught us a lot.
Compete. She was super competitive. I mean, she could compete on-- if we were on a podcast right now, she'd be competing, how much time is he taking, I want more time. Well, he just made a good point, I'm going to make a better point. You know, that kind of thing. Just very competitive.
And, there was something in sports that played for all of the things she was interested in. How could you be so tough and competitive and at the same time have so much fun? That was what sports was for her. So, she was athletic. I mean, I'm running on and on, but, as a little kid, some of my first memories are seeing her in the pool with children with special needs, who had come to our House for Camp Shriver.
I was three or four or five years old when that started. So, obviously, my memories are vague, but there she was in the pool. Not watching, not supervising, not ordering, not writing checks or writing orders, but in the pool herself. Holding up the body of a child and saying, kick, kick, kick, kick, kick. Harder. Make a bigger splash. She was a force. Some people use the term force of nature, I think she's the force of humanity, because her real commitments and passions were to changing the human condition and making it closer to the peace and justice she believed possible.
MATT PORTER: And, growing up with your mother Eunice and your father Sargent Shriver must have been unique. Think about the mid-20th Century. The roles for women were still pretty limited, but your mother went well beyond. What was it like growing up with a mother who was really, like you said, a force of humanity? We'll use your term. And then also, Sargent Shriver, who, in his own right, was also a public good powerhouse. What was it like having both of them as parents?
TIM SHRIVER: Well, the one thing none of us has is the capacity to compare our upbringings to anybody else's, because we only have one. So, all I can say is, the bright side of my childhood was the excitement, the possibility. My dad believed, so much, in what was possible. He never could be discouraged.
Things would go wrong he'd say, now, what? Well, this means we have to try harder. This means we have to work again. I remember talking to him, as a young man or as a boy, about the losses in our own family. And he said, yes, but these people gave their lives and it means we have to do more. We have to try harder. And he said, look at your mother, look. Look at how hard she's working, look at what she's accomplishing.
This was a duo committed to American possibility. They believed in the country, despite its flaws. They believed in humanity, despite our sins and weaknesses. They believed in the future, I would say, more than the present. So we were, as kids, it was just a daily dose of, I'd like to say, love in action. That's a quote from Mother Teresa.
And, I remember my mom and I being in a workshop for children with special needs in Japan, of all places, and all the workers at the workshop, people with special needs, had been making greeting cards by hand. Hand calligraphy in the greeting cards. And, they'd made hundreds and hundreds of this and every one was the words love is action. Each done individually. Some quite beautiful, others more rudimentary, in terms of the shapes.
And, I was looking at all these cards laid out and all the people so proud of their work and I looked over to my mom and I was thinking, you know, this is the perfect card for you. Love and action, both my mom and dad. That's what they tried. Now, did they drive us crazy and make us a little frantic and unable to rest, day or night, and struggling with where we fit in the larger scheme of things? All that. But mostly, they taught us that love in action was what made life worth living.
MATT PORTER: You mentioned how your father said, look at your mother, look at what she's doing. And, I think about the 1960s or that period, the 50s and 60s, where, I think, a lot of husbands would be intimidated or put off by a wife who was very determined and very active outside the home. I get the sense that that was different, when it came to your dad and Eunice.
TIM SHRIVER: Yeah. I mean, again, I didn't know this, but my dad was not-- so many strong women, I know this now, having lived my own 60 years. Strong women struggle to find men who can accept, welcome, enjoy the strength of a powerful woman. I think it's getting better.
But, my dad was just over the moon excited about my mom. He just couldn't get over her achievements. He couldn't believe the things she was doing. He couldn't contain his enthusiasm, to the point where she would say, Sergeant, stop it. God, we've heard that already. We know your excited. But, he just couldn't help it. He couldn't help it.
He was a strong man, in his own right. He'd grown up in a family devastated by the depression. He earned scholarships to boarding school, and then to Yale, then to Yale Law School. Become the editor in chief of the Yale Daily News. This was an ambitious, driven man. He wanted to be at the top of his field. He wanted his own version of the brass ring, but his wife just made him sparkle.
And, again, it's only now that I realize how rare it is, for a man who's driven and committed, to be completely ravished by a wife who's equally powerful and equally successful. So in that way, I think, I was very-- well, in many ways, I was lucky beyond what I deserve, but that was one of them.
MATT PORTER: What a great example to set for your sons. The Kennedy name was not one that didn't go unnoticed. The spotlight of your uncles, as you grew up, and just, in general, the Kennedy name in Massachusetts, and even the rest of the country, was very high profile and sort of romanticized out there in the media. How did your parents, particularly Eunice, try to keep you grounded? I mean, I assume they tried to keep you grounded.
TIM SHRIVER: Yeah. Well, honestly, my mother would never have tolerated even a hint of arrogance or entitlement. Now, you just get on to yourself right now. And now, someone else is clearing the table, what do you think you're doing sitting there? And you get on, you get right up there, now. And, there's work to be done. There was just, both of my parents.
My dad became, of course, associated with the Peace Corps, the first director. The founding director in support of President Kennedy's vision of the Peace Corps. He was so committed to getting down to the level where every human being is equal. You just couldn't have, you couldn't grow up in our house and think, for a minute, that you were better than anyone else.
Was the name prominent? Of course. Is it still? In many ways, yes. But the use of the name, if I can say that, in my parents' world was about how do you take advantage of this gift. Your uncles or your brothers or whatever, whatever they're like, have given us the chance to have this prominence, this door opener. Now use it. And when you walk through the door, bring with you those who deserve the chance. Bring with you those and bring with you those no one's heard from.
My mother would go to meetings with Nobel laureates and Supreme Court Justices and bring mothers and teachers. I remember this one teacher, Terri, was saying to me, I don't know why she keeps bringing me to meetings. I don't belong at any of these meetings. I don't-- I'm just a teacher from Spokane, Washington. But she'd say, you come along. You know, Terry. You know the story. You tell these men the truth about what it's going to take to help children. You tell them. They don't understand. They think they know everything, they don't know.
So, there was a sense, in both of my parents, and I think this came from their faith, I think it came from Rosemary also, my aunt, that you don't ever allow yourself, for an instant, to feel, to think, to imagine you being better than anyone else. It was almost the most deadly of sins. And in some ways, I think they were right about that. I think when any one of us starts to get on our high horse and believe that we're somehow better than anyone else, we're headed for a bad place.
JAMIE RICHARDSON: And, you just mentioned your aunt Rosemary. Your mother was so influential when it came to folks with and families dealing with children with intellectual and developmental disabilities. Can you explain a little bit about your mother's relationship with Rosemary and what made her so compassionate for this area.
TIM SHRIVER: Yeah. Well, Rosemary was born in an era when the dominant medical science around intellectual disability was eugenics. Prominent doctors, sociologists, psychologists from Ivy League universities were arguing for allowing infants to die, if they were born with disabilities, for breeding, parents to find out ways they could avoid having disabilities, to institutionalizing people who were hopelessly, in the words of the time. This is the era in which Rosemary was born.
The Supreme Court had not yet handed down its decision Buck v. Bell. I think Rosemary would have been eight years old when that decision was handed down. That decision authorized the forced sterilization of, mostly, women institutionalized because they had an intellectual disability in the late 1920s. As Oliver Wendell Holmes wrote, three generations of imbeciles are enough.
So, Rosemary was born at a time when a child with an intellectual disability was a great shame. A great embarrassment. And yet my grandparents, to their credit, I don't think I'll ever really understand, decided to keep her at home. And so, she grew up with my mom, with her brother Jack, and Bobby, and Joe, and Kick, and so on. They all grew up loving someone who the world did not understand and sometimes even hated.
And, I think my mom just never got over the outrage. How does the world treat my sister so badly? Why is it that the world looks down on her? Why is it that the world looks down on her? Why is it the world scorns her? Why is it that the world doesn't care about her, doesn't give her a school, doesn't give her a doctor, doesn't give her a job, doesn't give her a place to live, won't allow her to go out in public? Oh, the outrage just coursed through her, from her early childhood.
And I think, Rosemary's life, in some ways, people would say, tragic. She never fit in. She struggled in her early life. She couldn't keep up with her brothers and sisters. There was no school. There was no doctor. My grandparents looked for cures. They ended up experimenting with a cure that went terribly wrong, an operation on Rosemary's brain that they thought would help her, which hurt her, terribly.
So, in some ways, it's a tragic story, but in other ways Rosemary's, sometimes, silent presence, I think, taught my uncles a certain compassion, a certain vulnerability, if I can put it that way. A certain sense of the need to change the culture, not at a conceptual level. Some people say, well, we need to change this structure or that structure, but they felt it. They felt it when they were eight years old, when they were six years old, when they were 12 years old. That's a different feeling. That's a different emotional connection, to live your childhood and see that someone you love the world doesn't like, doesn't love, doesn't care about. In fact, locks up.
Oh, my mom just spent her whole life, really, leading my grandfather's foundation, named after my uncle Joe. The Joseph B Kennedy Jr. Foundation that started in the 50s to dedicate itself, completely, to the work of intellectual disability. And then, my mom, during President Kennedy's administration, launching the President's Council and launching the panel to review, and which ended up recommending wholesale changes to community mental health centers, to research facilities at the NIH. And, my mom quietly led a revolution and right behind her, right over her shoulder, her whole life, I think, was her sister Rosemary.
JAMIE RICHARDSON: That's wonderful. Thank you for sharing that. And obviously, her work in this area has rubbed off on you, as you're the chair of the Special Olympics and have been an advocate as well. What about her work inspired you or led you to take on Special Olympics in this area?
TIM SHRIVER: Well, my interest was a little different than my mom's. I in college got enamored of teaching and felt, wow, I thought to myself, you want to make a difference in the world? What institution has the same reach as a school? You get kids for 12 or 13 years, 10 months of the year, six hours of the day. Wow, I thought to myself. My uncles and others have involved in policy and electoral politics, but I thought, man, this is the place you can really make a difference in someone's life, if you commit to it.
So, I got very interested in education, child development, human development. What are the obstacles to flourishing, to purpose, to meaning, to fulfillment, to understanding, to trust, and belonging? I got very interested in these questions. And so, my first part of my career was in schools and developing a field called social and emotional learning, where we could teach children and teach adults empathy, and teach adults active listening, and teach adults how to self-regulate, and teach adults how to find purpose, and teach kids.
And, I was just so excited about this work in schools, and when the Special Olympics opportunity came along, I thought to myself, wow, this is another kind of a classroom. And, if you believe that belonging and inclusion and bringing people closer together, so that they can build a future that's more just and more peaceful, it seemed to me Special Olympics was this extraordinary opportunity to teach these lessons. So, I came at it a little less from the point of view of a coach. My mom was a coach. I think of myself more as a teacher.
So, my work in the Special Olympics movement has been, really, to try to learn the lessons from the athletes. I think my mom really wanted to challenge athletes and inspire them to do their best. And of course, I believe that's important. I am just as interested in what the athletes have to teach the rest of us and how their example, their way of knowing, which is different, right? They know in a different way, people with special needs, often. Not all, of course, it's not one group. But, they have unique ways of navigating the world, unique strategies for overcoming fear and anxiety and indifference, unique structures of trust and relationship.
Very few mothers or fathers won't say that their child with special needs change them. I'm fascinated by how. Why? How did you change? This child that most people think of as a burden, but they often say, well, yes, but I'm a different person now, I'm a more loving person, I'm a more compassionate person, I'm a more connected person, I'm a better person. That's what fascinates me and I hope, with whatever time I have, to continue to invite others to join me in trying to learn these lessons.
And, I think they can-- I think people with special needs, ironically, I think can be great teachers for the country at a time like this, where we need new role models of trust, and respect, and purpose, and justice. Yes. And peace, Yes. But, our country is hungry for role models right now. And people say, well, what about your Uncle Jack and your Uncle Bobby or what about Martin Luther King? They were great, but I think they're all looking down on us and saying, come on, find your own, get some new people on the scene. And I would say, ironically, look to the track at a Special Olympics event, you might find leaders that you don't expect.
JAMIE RICHARDSON: That's great and that, actually, kind of follows into my next question. It's that, often when people think of your family, they think of your uncles who are in elected office, but some who have written about your mother say that she was the major influencer in the family and often underestimated, as we've talked about. And, do you think that that's true, that she was the driving, main influence in the family?
TIM SHRIVER: Of course, I do. How can I answer that question any other way other than yes? No, my mom was the-- what a terrible thing to live your life, people saying to you, if you'd been a man, X, Y, Z. But she did, she carried that burden, I think, with frustration and anger, but also with determination.
We'd be celebrating her 100th birthday. It's a century in which the world changed completely from the time she was born to today, and she had a very powerful role in changing it. And, I think, I dare say, 100 years from now, when people look back on this particular window, this one Century from her birth till today, they will look back and say, that woman, maybe she wasn't noticed as much in her lifetime, but that woman understood something about humanity way ahead of her time and taught the world and challenged the world to be better, in a way few others did. I'm a big fan.
MATT PORTER: Sorry. I bet you are, of course. And, that leads to another question. Your mom had this under the radar-type, she didn't have the many biographers that have looked at your uncles. So, in that theme, what would you want to tell people about your mom that you think most people don't know?
TIM SHRIVER: Well, I think the first thing most people don't know is that she changed the world, that the great Civil and Human Rights Movements of the 20th century, that there's one you don't know much about, and that is the one on behalf of people with intellectual disabilities. In 1968, the year the Special Olympics movement was founded, the United States had its largest population of people institutionalized. Almost 200,000 Americans placed in institutions for life, because of an intellectual disability.
At that pivot point in American history, when the tide started to shift, my mom was pushing. And, it was her work before that and her work after that helped lead to the community, lead to the Education of all the Children Act, that then later became the IDEA, and later became parts of the ADA. My mom was there. The research and care for women during pregnancy and after childbirth, there was no attention to it in 1950, 1940. My mom was there pushing for that in the early 60s and beyond. Attention to the issues around dignity, employment, community living. That my mom was a revolutionary in the best of all possible worlds.
Angry? Yes. But, channeling anger in to change in a way that you don't notice, because she empowered so many others to be the change agents, too. So, I'd want people to know she was a revolutionary, that she changed the country and, indeed, the world, that she valued being a wife, a mother, a sister, a daughter, an aunt as much as she valued her roles in the world, that she had this great capacity to balance a compassionate care for her own with the compassion and care for the whole. And so, she was a great American. I think, someday, when we list the great Americans, I think she'll be on the roster.
JAMIE RICHARDSON: And then, on a more personal level, would you mind sharing one of your favorite memories of your mother?
TIM SHRIVER: Well, I have--
JAMIE RICHARDSON: If there is one...
TIM SHRIVER: --so many. But I guess I'll just share, towards the end of her life we were lucky enough to have the Chinese government host a Special Olympics World Games in 2007, just two years before my mom left us. And people would say, well, it's a big trip, and, Eunice, maybe you don't go to this one. And, of course, she's like, I just wouldn't hear anything of it. In and out of the hospital, but onto the plane she went. To downtown Shanghai and a 12 hour time change and chaos and all the things that happen around big events.
And, we went that night to the opening ceremonies, she sat next to the head of the Chinese government. The show was broadcast to 100 million people. The stadium was full, 60, 70,000 people. The show on the field had hundreds and hundreds of drummers drumming in synchronicity to the heart beat of one Special Olympics athlete. Boom, boom, boom, boom. And, I was down in the field and I looked up at her and I just thought to myself, imagine, from the swimming pool in Brookline or Hyannis Port.
I asked her, shortly after that, I'll close with this. I said, you know, mommy, you really ought to write a book. Going to the office is not for you, necessarily, anymore. You ought to write a book. And she said, oh, no one would read a book I would write. And I said, no, you know, you have this amazing life and this family in the 20th century and all the things you've changed. And she said, well, you know, really, the only thing I ever tried to do was teach children with intellectual disabilities to swim.
I looked at her and I thought to myself, you know, she's right, that's really the only thing she wanted to do. She just believed so deeply in this population. She just thought, if I just I could teach them to swim, the world would change. And, I felt that when I was there in Shanghai, looking at her, imagining being on the other side of the world from where she grew up, at this penultimate moment of her life. And I hope, I think she was proud, she was never content, but I think she was proud. I think she knew that she had given her life to something that mattered.
JAMIE RICHARDSON: That's wonderful, thank you. It's very, very touching. And, just for our last question, what do you think young women or even any young person growing up today, passionate for a cause, could learn from your mother?
TIM SHRIVER: Well, I think they could learn how to take anger and channel it into change. I think they could learn how one person can make a difference. I think they can learn not to wait for others, but to just act and invite others to join you. She was a big believer in just get started and try things and if you try things, people will help you.
And, I think they could learn from her the importance of faith. It's not very fashionable to talk about it these days, but I think her North Star was her faith. I think when things went south, it was her faith that kept the ship afloat and kept it sailing towards its buoy. And, I think if you don't have your inner life, if you don't have your faith, whatever faith, tradition, I don't mean to be one religion or another. But, if you don't know where your faith comes from and you don't know that your faith can guide you, I think it's very difficult and you lose hope quickly. So, I think they could learn from her to strengthen your faith, whatever it is, strengthen it.
Act. Whatever you believe is necessary, try. And in the end, believe that you're making a difference. A lot of people have given up thinking they make a difference. "Ah, my life is small, look at her, she was a big shot, she had all this, she had all that." No. Nobody's life is small. As my mom said at the end of her life, she just wanted to teach children with intellectual disabilities to swim. That's what she really focused on. So, take your anger, take your faith, channel it into action, trust your instincts, and give it your all. She left nothing on the side.
JAMIE RICHARDSON: That's excellent. Thank you so much. I think that's, definitely, something we can all learn from, certainly, the legacy of your mother as we celebrate her Centennial this month. So, Tim, thank you so much for taking the time to speak with us today.
TIM SHRIVER: Thanks for having me.
MATT PORTER: Thank you.
JAMIE RICHARDSON: Having heard from biographer Eileen McNamara and Eunice's son Tim Shriver, we got an intimate look at Eunice Kennedy Shriver. But now, we have the lucky opportunity to hear from Eunice, herself, in a speech she made at the JFK Library in November of 2007. Please note that, in her remarks, she will use an old, outdated term for intellectually disabled individuals that was commonly used during parts of the 20th century.
MATT PORTER: In this speech, Eunice spoke about her passion for people with intellectual disabilities, her fortune to grow up as a member of the Kennedy family, and to be married to Sargent Shriver, having so many children and grandchildren. But, she also talks about her luck to face certain challenges in her life, and that's where we join her now.
EUNICE KENNEDY SHRIVER: But in a strange way, perhaps, my life also includes being lucky in the adversity I encountered. I am lucky that I experienced the sting of rejection, as a woman who was told that the real power was not for me. I am lucky that I saw my mother and my sister Rosemary treated with unbearable rejection. I am lucky that I've had to confront political and social injustice around the world, throughout our career. You might say, why are we lucky to have such difficult experiences?
And, the answer is simple. The combination of the love of my family and this awful sting of rejection, helped me to develop the confidence that I needed to believe that I could make a difference in a positive direction. You will not be surprised to know that, I believe that those same qualities were also the experience that shaped President Kennedy.
Truthfully, I believe Rosemary's rejection had far more to go with the brilliance of his presidency than anyone can understand. Yes, he was our country's greatest champion of, what we all call, mental retardation. To this day, his legacy of innovation in creating NICHD, the university affiliated centers, the President's Council remains today one of the great histories of our country. But, beyond the work he did for people with intellectual disabilities, I believe it was Rosemary's influence that centralized him, and all of us, to the gifts of vulnerable and weak people.
I think I can say that not one, among the thousands who have written about him, has understood what it's really like to be a brother of a person who has mental retardation. And, tonight I want to say, that I've never said before, more than any single individual, Rosemary had the greatest influence.
So, tonight, with great gratitude to Jack and also to my wonderful sons and daughters, first, I wish to each of you the love of a family. And if that isn't possible, the love of a family who will treat you like a family, because there is no substitute for love. Everything else doesn't matter. If you haven't got a family, go find one.
Secondly, I wish each of you the gift of being able to channel whatever injustice, anger, or frustration you have to a mission change. You can do it. The only person you can convince is yourself. And finally, I want to offer you the chance to play or go to school or be friends with one of the 200 million people on Earth who have an intellectual disability. I guarantee you that you will never go back. Who knows, you may even become a future president of the United States.
So, thank you for the evening. Thank you for enforcing for me the power of faith, hope, and love. I've always believed these to be the most important gifts of all. I hope that many of you will join in my special mission to make-- what?-- the world safe for people with intellectual disability and to make the world safe for human dignity.
MATT PORTER: Thank you for listening to this episode of JFK35, a podcast from the JFK Library Foundation. We hope you enjoyed this special episode looking at the amazing Eunice Kennedy Shriver. Visit our podcast page at www.jfklibrary.org/JFK35, where we'll have more information on topics mentioned in this episode, including links to more resources about Eunice and the virtual Centennial celebration happening this Saturday at 7:00 PM Eastern.
JAMIE RICHARDSON: If you have questions or story ideas, email us at jfk35pod@jfklfoundation.org or tweet us @jfklibrary using the #jfk35. If you liked what you heard today, please consider subscribing to our podcast or leaving us a review wherever you get your podcasts. Thanks for listening and have a great week.