Who is Spiro Agnew

Spiro Theodore Agnew (November 9, 1918 - September 17, 1996) was the thirty-ninth Vice President of the United States serving under President Richard M. Nixon, and the fifty-fifth Governor of Maryland. He is most famous for his resignation in 1973 after he was charged with the crime of tax evasion. He is also noted for his quick rise in politics - in six years from County Executive to Vice President.

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Baltimore County Executive

Spiro Agnew was raised as a Democrat, and switched parties to become a Republican. During the 1950s, he aided U.S. Congressman James Devereux in four successive winning election bids, before entering politics himself in 1957 upon his appointment to the Baltimore County Board of Appeals by Democratic Baltimore County Executive Michael J. Birmingham. In 1960, he made his first elective run for office as a candidate for Judge of the Circuit Court, finishing last in a five-person contest. The following year, the new Democratic Baltimore County Executive, Christian H. Kahl, dropped him from the Zoning Board, with Agnew loudly protesting, thereby gaining name recognition.

In 1962, Agnew ran for election as Baltimore County Executive, seeking office in a predominantly Democratic county that had seen no Republican elected to that position in the twentieth century, with only one (Roger B. Hayden) earning victory after he left. Running as a reformer and Republican outsider, he took advantage of a bitter split in the Democratic Party and was elected. Agnew backed and signed an ordinance outlawing discrimination in some public accommodations, among the first laws of this kind in the United States.

Governor of Maryland

After choosing not to seek a second term as County Executive, Agnew ran for the position of Governor of Maryland in 1966. In this overwhelmingly Democratic state, he was elected after the Democratic nominee, George P. Mahoney, a Baltimore paving contractor and perennial candidate running on an anti-integration platform, narrowly won the Democratic gubernatorial primary out of a crowded slate of eight candidates. Many Democrats opposed to segregation then crossed party lines to give Agnew the governorship by 82,000 votes.

As governor, Agnew worked with the Democratic legislature to pass tax and judicial reforms, as well as tough anti-pollution laws. Projecting an image of racial moderation, Agnew signed the state's first open-housing laws and succeeded in getting the repeal of an anti-miscegenation law. However, during the riots that followed the assassination of Martin Luther King, Jr., Agnew angered many African-American leaders by lecturing them about their constituents in stating, "I call on you to publicly repudiate all black racists. This, so far, you have been unwilling to do."

(...from Wikipedia)

Spiro Agnew's moderate image, immigrant background and success in a traditionally Democratic state made him an attractive running mate for Richard M. Nixon in 1968. In line with what would later be called Nixon's "Southern Strategy," Agnew was selected as a candidate for being sufficiently from the South to attract Southern moderate voters, yet not as identified with the Deep South, which could have turned off Northern centrists come election time. His vice presidency was the highest-ranking United States political office ever reached by a Greek-American citizen or, for that matter, a Marylander. Agnew's nomination was supported by many conservatives within the Republican Party and by Nixon. But a small band of delegates started shouting "Spiro Who?" and tried to place George W. Romney's name in nomination. Nixon's wishes prevailed and Agnew went from his first election as County Executive to Vice President in six years -- one of the fastest rises in UU.S. political history.

Agnew was a protege of Nelson Rockefeller, then governor of New York State and a head of the moderate wing of the Republican Party. Rockefeller was Nixon's chief opponent during the 1968 primary season. Going into the 1968 GOP convention neither Nixon nor Rockefeller had enough votes to clinch the nomination, but Nixon had nearly enough. He invited Rockefeller to his hotel room and proposed that Rockefeller throw his support to Nixon in exchange for naming the Vice Presidential nominee. The only condition was that Rockefeller could not name himself. Rockefeller named Agnew.

Spiro Agnew was known for his tough criticisms of political opponents, especially journalists and anti-Vietnam War activists. He was known for attacking his opponents with unusual, often alliterative epithets, some of which were coined by White House speech-writers William Safire and Pat Buchanan, including "nattering nabobs of negativism" (written by Safire), "pusillanimous pussyfoots", and "hopeless, hysterical hypochondriacs of history".

In short, Agnew was Nixon's "hatchet man" when defending the administration on the Vietnam War. Agnew was chosen to make several powerful speeches in which he spoke out against anti-war protesters and media portrayal of the Vietnam War, labeling them "Franco Un-American". Agnew toned down his rhetoric and dropped most of the alliterations after the 1972 election with a view to running for president himself in 1976.

(...from Wikipedia)

On October 10, 1973, Spiro Agnew became the second Vice President to resign his office. John C. Calhoun was the first, and he resigned to take a seat in the Senate. Agnew resigned because of pending criminal charges of tax evasion and money laundering. In a negotiated deal, he pled no contest ("nolo contendre") to in federal court to one misdemeanor charge of income tax evasion. The charges stemmed from his time in the Mary;and Governor's office. Agnew accepted bribes from members of the construction industry for project approval. Agnew continued to accept this money after moving to Washington. Needless to say, the angry contruction industry men were the government's witnesses against Agnew. He was fined $10,000 and put on three years' probation. The $10,000 fine covered the taxes and interest due on what was "unreported income" from 1967. The plea bargain he worked out was seen as a momockery by many including the Attorney General for the Stae of Maryland. As a result of his nolo contendere plea, Agnew was disbarred by the State of Maryland in 1974. Like most jurisdictions, Maryland lawyers are automatically disbarred after being convicted of a felony, and a nolo contendere plea exposes the defendant to the same penalties as a guilty plea.Students of Professor John Banzhaf from The George Washington University Law School, collectively known as Banzhaf's Bandits, found four residents of the state of Maryland willing to put their names on a case and sought to have Agnew repay the state $268,482 - the amount he was known to have taken in bribes. After two appeals by Agnew, he finally resigned himself to the matter and a check for $268,482 was turned over to Maryland state Treasurer William James in early 1983.

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