Obituary: R. Sargent Shriver, 95, First Peace Corps Leader

R. Sargent Shriver, the Kennedy family brother-in-law who shaped the Peace Corps as its founding director, died Tuesday at age 95, according to The New York Times and The Washington Post.

Mr. Shriver was named by President John F. Kennedy to lead the new Peace Corps in 1961 and during his five-year tenure built it into an army of volunteers serving in dozens of countries. He also served as the point man for President Lyndon Johnson’s War on Poverty, heading the federal agency that developed Head Start, the Job Corps, and Volunteers in Service to America, among other programs.

Mr. Shriver’s political career ended with an unsuccessful presidential run in 1976. In his later years he was active in the Special Olympics, founded by his wife, the late Eunice Kennedy Shriver, and his own advocacy group, the Sargent Shriver National Center on Poverty Law. He largely withdrew from public life after being diagnosed with Alzheimer’s disease in 2003.