An Uncomplaining "Sargent" in the War on Poverty

Maria Shriver, wife to California Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger, has helped produce a documentary that brings her father, Robert "Sargent" Shriver's, important government and social work into the spotlight.

According to The Hartford Courant, the documentary, called American Idealist: The Story of Sargent Shriver, broadcasts tonight on PBS. It has interviews with people ranging from Bill Moyers and Coretta Scott King to former Peace Corps volunteers.

During the Kennedy administration, Shriver began the Peace Corps program, and later, under President Johnson, he headed up the War on Poverty with several initiatives that remain today, including Head Start, Job Corps., and VISTA, the latter of which became AmeriCorps. Shriver had political ambitions as well, and ran for vice president in 1972.

The film made Maria Shriver realize how difficult her father's work during the War on Poverty must have been on him. She says, however, that she never heard her father complain. Speaking like a true idealist, the former television journalist also said that she still believes in television's power to "really teach people and really change their life," and that people have been left feeling "inspired" by the documentary "and want to get involved."