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POINT OF THE LANCE by Sargent Shriver

POINT OF THE LANCE

By

Pub Date: Sept. 29th, 1964
Publisher: arper & Row

Sargent Shriver tries to nail two birds with one book and fails in both departments. This is perhaps because the book is merely a compilation of his speeches and that the book was not composed as one. Mr. Shriver is Director of the Peace Corps and also the President's Assistant in the War on Poverty and he has tried to join these two laudable activities into one call to arms. The result is far too idealistic and intellectual at the expense of revealing what's being done in the field. These essays, each written to be delivered in ten or fifteen minutes, barely mention the grass roots work of the Peace Corps Volunteers and tell even less about the War on Poverty workers. Mr. Shriver's optimism are ennobling, and he can turn a nicely edged phrase. But rhetoric, for the best of purposes, is still rhetoric. The reader doesn't argue with rhetoric for Peace and against Poverty; he wonders what is being done. The report here is so general that only Party Workers will find a phrase to wave.