ROANOKE TIMES
Copyright (c) 1996, Roanoke Times
DATE: Wednesday, September 18, 1996 TAG: 9609180125
SECTION: NATIONAL/INTERNATIONAL PAGE: A-1 EDITION: METRO
DATELINE: OCEAN CITY, MD.
TYPE: NEWS OBIT
SOURCE: Associated Press
NOTE: Above
Spiro T. Agnew, an outspoken conservative who loved bashing the media before he resigned in disgrace as Nixon's vice president over a tax-evasion scandal in 1973, died Tuesday. He was 77.
Agnew was taken to Atlantic General Hospital on Tuesday. Officials there and at the Ullrich Funeral Home in neighboring Berlin would not release any information about the cause of death.
Agnew was the little-known governor of Maryland when Richard Nixon picked him as his running mate in 1968. He made a name for himself as vice president for his die-hard conservatism and colorful phraseology, such as when he described the media as ``nattering nabobs of negativism.''
Five years after his election, Agnew walked into a federal courtroom in Baltimore, pleaded no contest to one count of income tax evasion and announced his resignation.
He was only the second vice president to resign the office and the first to be forced out by legal troubles. John C. Calhoun, who had been at political odds with President Andrew Jackson, resigned in December 1832 to become a senator from South Carolina.
In court, Agnew did not contest the government charge that he ``willfully'' evaded paying $13,551.47 in federal income taxes in 1967. Judge Walter E. Hoffman fined him $10,000 and sentenced him to three years' unsupervised probation.
When he was named as Nixon's running mate - a ``bolt out of the blue,'' he called it - Agnew acknowledged that his name was not a household word. But his aggressive campaigning and hard-line statements quickly changed that.
He derided opponents of the Vietnam War as ``an effete corps of impudent snobs'' and labeled national television commentators ``a tiny fraternity of privileged men elected by no one and enjoying a monopoly sanctioned and licensed by the government.''
Student protesters, he said, ``have never done a productive thing in their lives. They take their tactics from Fidel Castro and their money from Daddy.''
Although many of his controversial comments were planned, some were not. He was criticized as insensitive and even racist after using racial epithets. And at one point in the campaign, he canceled a trip to an inner-city ghetto, saying ``When you've seen one slum, you've seen them all.''
Still, his career had elements of the classic American success story.
He was born Nov. 9, 1918, in suburban Baltimore, the son of a Greek immigrant father. He became a lawyer and moved into politics, winning his first election as executive of Baltimore County in 1962.
In 1966, he was elected governor of Maryland, only the fifth Republican in 180 years to be elected governor of the heavily Democratic state.
Agnew's response to the April 1968 riots in Baltimore following the death of Martin Luther King proved to be a watershed in his career, almost immediately changing his image from liberal Republican to outspoken conservative.
As violence broke out, he summoned black leaders to his office and lectured them sternly for keeping silent while militants ignited crowds to action. The lecture enraged his listeners, many of whom walked out on it. But it earned him praise from conservatives and attracted the attention of Nixon and his advisers, leading to his nomination that summer.
Only very rarely did he appear on a television show or grant an interview. He continued to press his case that he was innocent in his book, ``Go Quietly or Else,'' published in 1980.
Agnew said he was forced out of office by Nixon, who ``naively believed that by throwing me to the wolves, he had appeased his enemies.''
When Nixon died in 1994, Agnew said he came to the funeral because ``I decided after 20 years of resentment to put it all aside.'' He said he hadn't talked to Nixon since the day he resigned, refusing to take several calls from Nixon because ``I felt totally abandoned.''
In May 1995, he returned to Washington for the unveiling of his bust in the Capitol, outside an entrance to the Senate among the likenesses of other former vice presidents. To those who thought it was ``an honor I don't deserve,'' he said that the sculpture ``has less to do with Spiro Agnew than the office I held.''
He and his wife, Judy, had a son and three daughters.
LENGTH: Medium: 84 lines ILLUSTRATION: PHOTO: (headshot) Agnewby CNB