Forty-three years after resigning, Spiro Agnew (1918-1996) remains one of America's most controversial Vice Presidents. He was Richard Nixon's point man for "positive polarization," savaging hippies, liberals, protestors and reporters with tirades both alliterative and insulting. While Nixon promised to bring American together, Agnew drove it further apart.Agnew was loved and hated with equal intensity. Dirty Time created a Spiro Agnew watch which became a best-selling novelty. Another manufacturer sold soap bars as "Spiro Agnew mouthwash." A spoken word LP, Spiro Agnew Speaks Out, excerpted his speeches for Silent Majority listeners. He was America's third most admired man in 1970, after Nixon and Billy Graham. Numerous books, some critical, others adulatory, tried to account for his sudden prominence.
Marvelous music for nattering nabobs
Born in Baltimore to Greek immigrants, Agnew parlayed a legal career into politics. He became Baltimore's County Executive in 1962, showing commendable sensitivity to racial concerns. He backed open housing legislation and worked with the Congress of Racial Equality (CORE) to desegregate public parks in Baltimore County. Less commendably, Agnew accepted bribes for development contracts - which later triggered his demise.Running for Governor in 1966, Agnew defeated an openly segregationist Democrat, George P. Mahoney. Mahoney ran on a slogan of "Your Home Is Your Castle - Protect It!" and received a challenge from liberal Walter Sickles. This split allowed Agnew to win easily. Washington Post columnist Jack Eisen called him a "quiet, strong-willed and often impatient administrator," an activist Governor preaching liberal reform.
But in 1968, Agnew was reborn as a conservative. Several events compounded to change the trajectory of Agnew's ideology and career, personal, political and cultural. As much as George Wallace, he became the poster child for conservative backlash to '60s turmoil.
More dramatic events followed on April 6th. Baltimore, like many cities, experienced massive rioting after Martin Luther King's assassination; Agnew mobilized the Baltimore National Guard and asked for Federal troops. After eight days of violence, six Baltimoreans were dead, 700 injured and large swathes of the city destroyed. The unrest infuriated Agnew.
Baltimore in flames, April 1968
On April 11th, Agnew subjected 100 prominent black Baltimoreans to a violent harangue. The city had suffered savage violence, Agnew said. "And you ran," he insisted. "You met in secret with [Robert Moore, a Black Power activist]... and you agreed... that you would not openly criticize any black spokesman, regardless of his remarks." He accused them of allowing Stokely Carmichael to incite riots and that "you have not been willing" to repudiate extremists.His audience was appalled; most stormed out. When Juanita Jackson Mitchell, a local NAACP leader, objected, Agnew repeatedly demanded: "Do you repudiate black racists?" The meeting dissolved into an uproar. Samuel T. Davis, a community leader, called Agnew "offensive to me and it is insulting"; Reverend Marion C. Bascon called Agnew "as sick as any bigot in America."
Agnew's tirade infuriated blacks but struck a chord with white Marylanders. They flooded Agnew's office with letters and telegrams, overwhelmingly supportive. Another fan was Pat Buchanan, Nixon's hard-right hatchet man, who commended Agnew's remarks to his boss.
Agnew and Nixon, August 1968
Once Nixon secured the nomination, he debated his running mate with Republican leaders. Southern conservatives rejected Oregon Senator Mark Hartfield and New York City Mayor John Lindsay. Liberals were leery about California Governor Ronald Reagan and Tennessee Senator Howard Baker. So Nixon asked: "What about Agnew?" No one objected, so Agnew it was.Nixon's choice baffled observers in 1968, who called Agnew "Sparrow Who?" But it was a natural product of Nixon's triangulations. He needed to unite the Republican Party's disparate factions after the Goldwater debacle. Agnew, a Southerner with a progressive record but penchant for reactionary rhetoric, satisfied both wings of the GOP.
Nixon tried assuring skeptics that he made the right choice. "You look a man in the eye and you know he's got it - brains," he said of Agnew. "This guy has got it. If he doesn't, Nixon has made a bum choice." Time would render its verdict.
But Agnew's tough-minded attacks on liberals compensated. He called antiwar protestors "spoiled brats who never have had a good spanking" and accused Democrats of creating an "atmosphere that allows irresponsible conduct." On criminals' rights and police brutality, Agnew commented "It would be a tremendous deterrent if everyone who ran from arrest thought... he's going to get shot." His intemperate words allowed Nixon to pose as moderate statesman.
After the election, Agnew slumped into Vice Presidential anonymity. With Nixon shielded by his aides, H.R. Haldeman and John Ehrlichman, Agnew had little say in administration policy, content with boilerplate speeches and powerless commissions. Then came the Moratorium to End the War in Vietnam, a nationwide protest in October 1969. Nixon's aides urged the President to unleash Agnew.
Agnew with William Safire and Pat Buchanan
The offensive began on October 19th in New Orleans. Agnew rewrote his speech to include a condemnation of academic permissiveness. "A spirit of national masochism prevails," he accused, "encouraged by an effete corps of impudent snobs who characterize themselves as intellectuals." That memorable phrase earned a standing ovation; Agnew the Culture Warrior came into his own.In Harrisburg, Pennsylvania, Agnew redoubled his efforts. After another tirade against protestors, he called for a "positive polarization... It is time to rip away the rhetoric and divide on authentic lines." If Agnew realized he was echoing the New Left, with its call to "heighten the contradictions," he didn't care. So much for "Bring Us Together."
Agnew was a wooden speaker with little personal charisma, but his colorful phraseology captured the imagination. He employed cascading consonants and artful alliteration. He savaged the "nattering nabobs of negativism," "parasites of passion," and the liberal 4-H Club: "The hopeless, hysterical hypochondriacs of history." Speechwriter William Safire recalled that he, Agnew and Buchanan combed thesauri for cutting, original insults.
Agnew made his signature speech in Des Moines, Iowa on November 13th. This came a day after Nixon's "Silent Majority" speech, encouraging Americans to stay the course on Vietnam. Since his Congressional days, Nixon considered the press his mortal enemy. He was especially galled that Averill Harriman, diplomat and Nixon bete noire, had given a critical assessment of the speech for ABC News.
So Agnew cheerfully attacked. "The audience of seventy million Americans... was inherited by a small band of network commentators and self-appointed analysts," he said. Americans had the right to listen "without the president's words and thought characterized through the prejudices of hostile critics." He finally lambasted journalists as "a tiny and closed fraternity of privileged men, elected by no one."
CBS president Frank Stanton called Agnew's speech "an unprecedented attempt... to intimidate a news medium which depends for its existence upon government license." Indeed, FCC chairman Dean Burch demanded transcripts of network broadcasts and threatened to revoke licenses. Conservatives roared their approval; the meme of the liberal media took hold.
Spiro the Bad Cop
With Agnew's growing popularity, he grew more assertive. To the dismay of Nixon's aides, he advocated increased funding to NASA and, the following spring, encouraged Nixon's invasion of Cambodia. He attacked those, whether journalists or Nixon staffers, who wanted to muzzle him. "Spiro Agnew was a problem that required constant vigilance," Ehrlichman commented. Still, his popularity with the base outweighed any reservations.Then came Kent State. The May 1970 shootings of antiwar demonstrators shook the nation, but left Agnew unmoved. He savaged the victims as "tomentose exhibitionists who provoke more derision than fear" and commented that Nixon's characterization of protestors as "bums" was "a little mild." The President grew unnerved: "Do you think Agnew's too tough?" he asked Ehrlichman. "He's got to be more positive."
Nonetheless, Nixon deployed Agnew for the 1970 midterms. Agnew attacked Democrats. Tennessee Senator Albert Gore was "the Southern regional chairman of the Eastern Establishment"; Illinois Democrat Adlai Stevenson III was "as closely related to Harry Truman as a Chihuahua is to a timber wolf." He labeled opponents "ultra-liberals" and "radic-libs," among other epithets.
Charles Goodell
There was New York Senator Charles Goodell, an antiwar Republican. "We are dropping Goodell over the side," Nixon said, and Agnew attacked. He savaged Goodell as "the Christine Jorgensen of the Republican Party," earning rebukes from Nelson Rockefeller. Goodell lost to Conservative Party candidate James Buckley, brother of William F. Buckley.Nonetheless, the midterms yielded Democratic victories. Nixon wondered if Agnew had pushed too hard; certainly, his increased independence became wearisome. He criticized Republican governors for employing "excuses and rationalizations for their defeats"; Oregon Governor Tom McCall called it a "rotten, bigoted little speech." His relationship with the President grew even chillier.
Nixon told Haldeman "we've got to keep [Agnew] out of substantive policy development" and that "he either starts to shape up or I can't use him." Mundane events like the Gridiron Dinner took days of delicate negotiation with Agnew's staff. "You can't tell the Vice President what to do," Haldeman told Nixon.
Nixon with John Connally
The Vice President traded barbs for gaffes. After touring Africa, he claimed that America's blacks "could learn much by observing the work that has been done" by dictators like Ethiopia's Hailie Selassie and Zaire's Joseph Mobutu. In early 1972, he criticized the idea of opening relations with China as Nixon negotiated that very development. When Nixon announced his visit to Beijing, Agnew about-faced and suggested he visit!Infuriated, Nixon considered dumping Agnew for John Connally. Former Texas Governor and LBJ confidant, Connally had switched parties to become Nixon's Treasury Secretary. Nixon had long wanted to realign American politics, uniting conservative Democrats and Republicans in a new right-wing party. Nixon only scrapped the idea when polls showed it would damage his reelection prospects.
But Agnew's fortunes soon unraveled. A grand jury investigating corruption in Baltimore linked Agnew to bribe-taking while County Executive. Routine enough, except informants showed that Agnew continued accepting bribes after becoming Vice President. Agnew found himself under attack; with Nixon reeling under Watergate, he could count on little help from the Administration.
Agnew faces the music
In his memoir, Go Quietly or Else, Agnew claims that Nixon arranged his scandals to distract from Watergate. He even claimed that Alexander Haig threatened to murder him if he remained in office. Whatever the truth of Agnew's wild accusations, his position became untenable. He resigned on October 10th, 1973, the first Vice President to resign since John Calhoun. He was sentenced to three years probation shortly afterwards.Unlike Nixon, Agnew sunk into obscurity. He published a novel, The Canfield Decision (1976), a dismal thriller about an Arab-Jewish-liberal plot to destroy America, and a self-exculpating memoir, Go Quietly or Else (1980), dedicated to his golfing partner Frank Sinatra. Agnew never spoke with Nixon again, retiring to private business. He died in September 1996, remembered by few and mourned by less.
But Agnew's legacy lives on, in the strident, divisive rhetoric of radio and television pundits, Tea Party Congressmen and intemperate Presidential candidates. Agnew was hardly the first politician to demonize opponents, yet his efforts a "positive polarization" elevated it to an art form, channeling hatred of intellectuals, liberals and press into florid, frothing rage. Twenty years after his death, the Right's battle with impudent snobs continues.
Jules Witcover has written three books on Agnew: White Knight: The Rise of Spiro Agnew (1971) and Very Strange Bedfellows (2007) were reviewed here. Justin P. Coffey's Spiro Agnew and the Rise of the Republican Right (2015) places his career within the GOP's evolution. Rick Perlstein's Nixonland (2008), as always, is invaluable.
Previous articles:
- George Wallace Stands Up for America, 1968
- Nelson Rockefeller and the Demise of the Liberal Republican
- William Scranton for President, 1964
- William Scranton for President, 1964, Part Two
