Sargent Shriver in Maryland hospital, spokesperson says

Sargent Shriver, a former Democratic vice presidential candidate and brother-in-law of former President John F. Kennedy, has been admitted to a hospital in suburban Washington, a hospital spokeswoman said on Sunday.

The spokeswoman for Suburban Hospital in Bethesda, Maryland, confirmed Shriver was in the hospital but declined to provide any additional information.

Shriver, 95, suffers from Alzheimer's disease.

Shriver was the first director of the Peace Corps, created during the Kennedy administration. He helped his wife, Eunice Kennedy, who died in August 2009, create the Special Olympics for mentally disabled children and adults in 1968.

Shriver helped launch President Lyndon Johnson's War on Poverty and was briefly a presidential candidate in 1976.

In 1972, Democratic presidential nominee George McGovern chose Shriver as his running mate after his first choice for the job, Missouri Senator Tom Eagleton, was revealed to have undergone electric shock therapy to treat depression.

McGovern and Shriver lost to incumbent President Richard Nixon and Vice President Spiro Agnew in a landslide.

Shriver's daughter, journalist Maria Shriver, is married to Arnold Schwarzenegger, the former Republican governor of California.