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Ice, Mrs. Astor? Though Shriver knew from the first that the poverty campaign would be controversial, he did not realize how implacable his critics would be. On occasion, he says wryly, "it makes me feel like Mrs. Astor on the Titanic. As the iceberg crashed through the ship's walls, she said, 'I asked for ice, but this is ridiculous.' "
Descendant of a well-to-do colonial Maryland family, Shriver does not consider himself wealthy, though he hardly has to scrimp. He rents a 30-acre estate in Rockville, Md., called "Timberlawn," just bought a house near the Kennedy summer compound in Hyannis Port for something under $200,000. As OEO director he earns $30,000, insists on better-than-average salaries for his staff— 23 top aides make more than $20,000, 40 others earn $15,000 or more. Though this has led to cracks about the "sweet smell of poverty," Shriver reasons that it takes good money to get good men, particularly for such sensitive and exposed jobs.
Despite his boosterish manner, Shriver is a shrewd politician. In 1957 his reputation as a businessman, tireless fund raiser and efficient president of the Chicago Board of Education resulted in a brief Sargent-for-Governor boomlet. It subsided quickly, but his friends expect another to develop—say, two years from now. "I don't have any current plan to run for office," he says, "but who knows what will happen in 1968 in Illinois?" He notes nonetheless that Governor Otto Kerner is finishing his second term, and only one man has ever run successfully for three terms in Illinois (Republican Richard J. Oglesby, whose last term ended in 1889). Shriver would have no residency problem; he maintains an apartment in Chicago's Drake Hotel. And thanks to his five-year task of making the Peace Corps the huge success it is today, he would be a popular candidate.
Gutter Language. Whether the poverty program burnishes or tarnishes Shriver's reputation remains to be seen. A recent poll commissioned by the G.O.P. National Committee shows that supporters of the program increased from 34% to 48% in the past year, while the skeptics held steady at 36%. Thus, barring a major scandal, it seems unlikely that Republicans at the national level will question the continuation of the poverty program in the fall campaign. They are certain to criticize its failures and question its administration.
Shriver concedes his mistakes. "Maybe we started too much, too fast, getting too many people excited," he says. "Maybe we should have started one program at a time. But there was great need." Among other blunders for which he was blamed was a $40,000 grant last summer to Playwright LeRoi Jones's Black Arts Repertory Theater in Harlem to produce, as Shriver later admitted, "vile racist plays in language of the gutter."