A: A hand up, not a handout.
(SOUNDBITE OF ARCHIVED AUDIO)
SARGENT SHRIVER: For example, if you volunteered to join the Job Corps, you really had to leave your home, go to a place where you work 10 hours a day. You are on duty, so to speak, 24 hours. It was seven days a week. This was not a soft touch. It was a tough job.
: Frank, first, how important was Sargent Shriver's leadership to the Peace Corps?
FRANK MANKIEWICZ: Oh, I think it was unparalleled. I'd be surprised if there's anyone who served as a Peace Corps volunteer or a staff member either, for that matter, from, let's say, 1961 to 1965, who isn't grieving today and who didn't see Sarg as kind of the embodiment of the idealism that created the Peace Corps.
: He was, of course, a Kennedy in-law. Do you think he would've been nationally prominent, an important figure had he not been married to Eunice Kennedy?
MANKIEWICZ: Well, you know, he was John Kennedy's campaign manager in the Midwest in 1960. And I think he might have done that, anyway. You know, he was very active in Chicago politics. He was president of the school board. I think he might very well become as prominent, maybe in different ways.
: Sargent Shriver became the Democratic Party's candidate for vice president under the most unusual circumstances when Tom Eagleton had to resign from the ticket when it had been reported that he'd been treated for depression with shock therapy many...
MANKIEWICZ: Yeah.
: ...a few years earlier. How did he respond to that invitation to be the vice presidential candidate at such a bleak moment for that matter?
MANKIEWICZ: But he was a man of great patriotism and saw the need for benefit to the U.S. You know, the Peace Corps, we always told the volunteers there were objectives in the Peace Corps. One, of course, is to help the countries to which you're assigned. The second was to bring back to the United States an understanding of what life was like in the ordinary and poor sections of other countries, which, of course, we hadn't had until that time.
: And that was a mission that Sargent Shriver articulated for the Peace Corps?
MANKIEWICZ: He sure did, from beginning to end.
: Well, Frank Mankiewicz, thanks for talking with us about...
MANKIEWICZ: Always a pleasure, Robert.
: Frank Mankiewicz talking about his longtime colleague and friend Sargent Shriver, who died today at the age of 95. Transcript provided by NPR, Copyright NPR.