Eunice Kennedy Shriver - Presidential Influence

President John F. Kennedy waited for his sister's report with great anticipation. "JFK even broke away from one of the emergency meetings on the Cuban missile crisis on October 15, 1962, to receive the panel's report," according to Harrison Rainie and Katia Hetter writing for U.S. News & World Report. Shriver knew that with this report she would be able to influence those in the political realm, but now she needed to address the daunting task of how to influence the public. According to Rainie and Hetter, She "hammered at the issue" further with her brother, expressing that she wanted to "come out" about their sister Rosemary by writing an article for the Saturday Evening Post. He agreed to this, just asking that he be able to see it before she submitted it. He approved of what Shriver wrote and it was published. "I wanted to convince people if the mentally retarded were given a chance they could achieve," stated Shriver in the book Special Olympics by Nancy Gilbert. When a Kennedy speaks, people listen, and according to Rainie and Hetter "the change in public and scientific attitudes prompted by the article and the work of the presidential panel was striking."