Spiro Agnew’s sordid legend is revisited
An intriguing aspect of the tawdry career of
Spiro Agnew not be found in Rachel Maddow’s bestseller, “Bag
Man,” — purportedly about “the wild crimes, audacious cover- up and spectacular downfall” of the erstwhile Maryland governor, U.S. vice president, and onetime conservative political idol — is that he was not an over- the- top ideologue.
When the 1968 national election season began, Gov. Agnew was anavid supporter of the most liberal Republican expected to be in the race, New York Gov. Nelson Rockefeller. Agnew had put together influential groups of lawyers, doctors, and other professionals pledged to Rockefeller.
As a member of the pencil media covering Agnew, I clearly recall the press conference he held on the day Rockefeller was scheduled to deliver the official announcement of his presidential candidacy.
With Agnew seated in front of the room next to the largest television screen available, the set was switched on, the room became uncharacteristically quiet. And Rockefeller announced he would not run. Agnew turned more shades of red than I knew existed.
Rockefeller had not notified one of his most devoted cheerleaders of his decision.
As Maddow and co- author Michael Yarvitz tell it, sometime later, after Agnew had publicly admonished Black leaders for not doing enough to quell the rioting in Baltimore in the wake of the murder of Dr. Martin Luther King Jr., a young WhiteHouse aide was dispatched to check out the Maryland governor. The report praised Agnewso lavishly thatNixon felt comfortable in making him his vice presidential choice.
Another scenario was passed on to me years later by another former Maryland governor, the late Marvin Mandel. Mandel attributed Agnew’s vice presidency to Louise Gore, a Republican state senator fromMontgomery County.
Mandel said Nixonwas so fixated on the so- called Southern strategy, based on the logic that he could win the conservative states below the Mason- Dixon line against Democrats running on a Civil Rights platform, that for the final word on his vice presidential pick he relied on South Carolina Sen. Strom Thurmond. But Thurmond had rejected everyone Republicans had suggested.
At a Georgetown party, Gore floated the nameof theMaryland governor. Thurmond saidAgnewwould be acceptable. Gore, who had connections to the highest levels of the GOP, got the word to Nixon. While the Maddow and Mandel accounts differ, they are not necessarily conflicting.
Anyone doubting the relevance of a tome about a thoroughly corrupt politician’s rise and fall some 50 years ago, would be wrong. There’s actually some new material regarding the extent of Agnew’s anti- Semitism, andthe startling reasonhe gave for pleading no contest to corruption charges after vowing to fight them until his last breath.
The real strength of “Bag Man” is the resolve of U.S. Attorney George Be all and three young prosecutors who saved the nation from the spectacle of a president receiving white envelopes with extortion payoff cash right in the Oval Office. It might well have happened, lest we forget that the Watergate investigation was going on simultaneously with the Agnew probe.
Ideologywas notAgnew’s thing. Norwas policy. He was an eager hatchet man for Nixon, notorious for dropping cringeworthy alliterative lines like “nattering nabobs of negativism” and “pusillanimous pussyfooters” on GOP opponents.
It’s still hard to imagine him removing his cufflinks and rolling up the sleeves of his white dress shirt to dive into a pile of steamed crabs and quaff down a pitcher of Natty Boh. And if he couldn’t do that he should have been disqualified from Maryland politics; his ambition and avarice would have been thwarted long before he could become a twinkle inDickNixon’s eye.