The Last Link to the Kennedy Years

The 50th anniversary of JFK’s inauguration is Thursday, but none of the former president’s closest colleagues are alive to celebrate it. With the passing of Sargent Shriver Tuesday, “no one who celebrated with John Kennedy at his greatest moments of political triumph remains on this earth,” writes Politics Daily’s Walter Shapiro. Shriver was the first director of the Peace Corps under Kennedy and urged then-candidate JFK in 1960 to phone Martin Luther King’s wife in support after King was jailed in Georgia—a controversial move in a campaign that feared a white backlash. He also arranged JFK’s funeral at Jackie’s request.