Word: agnew
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Dates: during 1960-1969
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Elected in 1966 after a Democratic split, Agnew, now 49, quickly gained a reputation as a competent, if not brilliant Governor. With the help of a newly apportioned Democratic legislature, released for the first time from rural domination, he pushed through a number of progressive measures. His accomplishments gained added luster when his record was contrasted with the mediocre one of his Democratic predecessor and the putative program of his segregationist opponent, the bumbling George Mahoney. More money was put into much-needed state services and state administration was modernized. With experience gained during four years as executive of Baltimore...
...Most Ardent Admirer. While most other moderate Republican Governors were hedging on the party's 1968 presidential nominee, Agnew was out working for his man?who was then New York's Governor Nelson Rockefeller. "Nelson Rockefeller," he said again and again, "is the man best qualified to be President." In response to "the ground swell of public opinion that I have seen developing," he sponsored a draft-Rockefeller organization, flying around the country in a Rockefeller-chartered plane to sing the New Yorker's praises. He was still singing when Rocky pulled out of the race on March...
Rockefeller's withdrawal, together with the Baltimore riots that followed Martin Luther King's assassination, profoundly altered Agnew's thinking. Agnew was so certain that Rockefeller would announce his entry into the Oregon primary that he invited reporters into his office to watch the Governor's press conference on TV. Through some incredible oversight in New York, no one had bothered to inform Rockefeller's most ardent admirer that Nelson was about to quit the race instead. Agnew had to bear his disappointment and humiliation in public. Though the New Yorker apologized handsomely, Agnew never forgave him. Nixon became more...
...Baltimore riots were even more traumatic for Agnew, who had to call out some 5,700 National Guardsmen and ask for nearly 4,800 federal troops to restore order. Agnew suspected a conspiracy, citing a visit to Baltimore by Stokely Carmichael several days before the trouble?and King's murder?as evidence. Within hours after the shooting stopped, he called 100 moderate Negro leaders into his office and gave them a tongue-lashing for not having counteracted Carmichael's fulminations. "You were intimidated by veiled threats," the Governor told them. "You were stung by insinuations that you were Mr. Charlie...
Maryland's Negroes had helped boost Agnew to victory in 1966 and generally considered him a firm friend. After April, his black support shriveled virtually to nothing. Today he is anathema to Maryland Negroes. He criticized national "preoccupation with civil liberties" at the expense of security, said that police were justified in shooting looters if they failed to obey commands to halt, assailed President Johnson for allowing the Poor People's Campaign to camp on federal land. He attacked the Kerner Commission for abetting rioting by talking of white racism. There is "an aura of belief," he said shortly before...