Go Quietly . . . or else, by Spiro T. Agnew
Abrams, Elliott
erick Teggart, who rightly pointed out that progressive ideas are bad history, is assumed t h e r e b y to be disillusioned with the idea of progress. This is to confuse Whig history with...
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...It is not possible to determine precisely why the prosecutors--from Attorney General Richardson on down--felt as strongly as they did, but certainly some combination of ideological politics, a distaste for corruption, and a fear for country lest a man they believed to be a criminal ascended to its highest office was at work...
...Agnew does claim that, in general, he kept political and personal funds separate...
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...In return he tells us about gray areas and about corruption as " a way of life...
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...Agnew's book is, then, a defense of sleaziness, in which the governor of Maryland, who would see himself as a proud and patriotic son of an immigrant and a great defender of America, is a willing participant in the .corruption which pervaded Maryland politics...
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...In the end, Agnew says, he quit in part because the biases and practices of the prosecutors made his vindication unlikely and in part because General Haig t h r e a t e n e d his life...
...Agnew tells this lie because it is central to his defense, which is that he did nothing that is not standard behavior for politicians: Others did it so I did it and that is that...
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...Having been beaten at the polls in the crushing defeat of the McGovernShriver ticket," he writes, the l e f t . w i n g e r s determined to r e v e r s e the election r e s u l t s by forcing Nixon out o f t h e p r e s i d e n c y by a p r o c e s s which amounted t o a coup d ' $ t a t . However, they would have g a i n e d n o t h i n g by kicki n g o u t Nixon o n l y to have me come to power as his s u c c e s s o r . . . . So to make their revolution a s u c c e s s , they had to g e t rid of me first...
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...If this hardly sounds like a ringing declaration of innocence, neither do other parts of his defense...
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...He insisted on making most of them in cash and handing them to me personally . . . . The money Green gave me was used for political campaigns . . . . [S]ome, I freely admit, went for entertaining and wooing influential civic leaders...
...Agnew wished to live in what was at b e s t - - g i v i n g him the benefit of every doubt--the gray area of political life, trading in cash and favors close to the line of corruption and malfeasance...
...That is, when contractors bought their government contracts with political contributions, the money really went for Agnew's political i n t e r e s t s and not for Cadillacs or condominiums...
...Agnew admits that he took m6ney from political contractors, but claims he did not deliver government contracts in exchange for it...
...I was aware of such awards . . . . I further assert that my acceptance of contributions was part of a long-established pattern of political fund-raising in the state...
...It does not, of course, justify their abuses, such as wholesale leaking, and it is a dangerous argument in that it allows the prosecutor wide discretion to " g e t " any political figure, or indeed any citizen, he considers a menace to society...
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...The testimony was that he crossed into illegality frequently and with impunity...
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...Well, not quite...
...He succeeds mostly in persuading the reader that zealous p r o s e c u t o r s may be the citizen's only hope against a swamp of major and minor corruption...
...his version leaves him straddling the line, looking away to be sure he would not be aware if and when he crossed it...
...Agnew presents this refusal to make an ethical judgment as if it were his best defense...
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...He also admits that political fundraising on his behalf was sufficiently corrupt that he did not want to know the details of it...
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...Professor" Nisbet would have done better to stick with the serious thinkers of the past than to bother with amateur disenthral!ers who think they know what is relevant and i r r e l e v a n t to t h e i r pupils...
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...When bleeding hearts tried this in the Nixon years Agnew had all the right answers: Social problems do not excuse criminal behavior, and abuses by the state should not redound to the credit of the criminal...
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...Leaving us to wonder what a precedented age might be, he goes on: "Perhaps my most useful function would be to disenthrall th'em from the spell of history, to help them see the irrelevance of the past...
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...This is to confuse Whig history with Whig politics: To criticize the former need not mean rejecting the latter...
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...To Agnew, a fair trial may well have seemed impossible (assuming he could have survived one, anyway...
...Second, he probably had not paid taxes on the cash...
...Now Agnew defends a view of public life in which the lowest common denominator prevails, and in which government spending is the g r e a s e for political big wheels...
...Power and Imagination: City-States in Renaiumseo Italy...
...It was a wise policy for a candidate or officeholder to isolate himself as much as possible from the political collection process, but it wasn't always possible--particularly at the county level...
...Even so, his speculations about motives are incomplete at best...
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...His prosecutors did, at times, become persecutors: Even Tom Wicker acknowledged that Agnew's rights "obviously have been imperilled by the damaging news le~iks about his case," for there was a lt~ng and indefensible series of leaks which had Agnew pilloried in an already very hostile press before any 32 THE AMERICAN SPECTATOR AUGUST 1980 evidence had even been presented in c o u r t . But Agnew's main complaint was not the leaks...
...Agnew once posed as a defender of the silent majority, the t a x p a y e r s who believed in the old s i n g l e - s t a n d a r d morality and who were sick of seeing their tax money wasted by the government...
...Putting aside for the moment the prosecutors' charges against Agnew, his own admissions portray him as a man morally unfit for high office--if no more so than many others who held it...
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...I am writing this book because I am innocent of the allegations against me which compelled me to resign from the vicepresidency of the United States in 1973...
...S p i r o Agnew left the White House in 1973 after pleading "nolo contendere" to an income-tax charge and, implicitly, to associated charges of political corruption...
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...Agnew provides us with a few: It would be d i s h o n e s t for me to sa x t h a t I was completely naive about t h e political r e a l i t i e s of f u n d - r a i s i n g . Like most politicians, I knew we had to have the campaign money, and i knew that it came mainly from people who made money out of being politically "in...
...Moreover, he admits to having received cash payments...
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...Indeed, Agnew's behavior is not only a complete b e t r a y a l of his old line on crime, but an adoption of the sort of moral relativism the Nixon administration once so firmly and cor4 Good Reasons To Try The History Book Club Big cash savings...
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...It is crucial to root out this kind of corruption and to show that justice is being done...
...Hammerman, a financial and political power in the s t a t e and Agnew's friend, Agnew admits that "it is true that during the eight years or so I knew him, Hammerman gave me personal girls amounting to perhaps nine or ten thousand dollars . . . . . I didn't think it wrong to take a gift from a wealthy friend, who apparently wanted nothing in return except, close proximity to me...
...Political corruption, they will a r g u e , erodes the very fundamentals of American justice, allowing rich and foul men to buy government favors and to make a mockery of American liberty and justice...
...To the federal court in 1974 Elliott Abrams is a lawyer living in IVasbington, D.C...
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...Agnew's description here of a prosecutorial team out to get him is a good deal more plausible than many other parts of the book...
...What is interesting in this book is not Agnew's personal fate, for his insouciance toward political integrity is everywhere evident, but rather the question of whether the prosecution of Agnew was not i t s e l f a form of political c o r r u p t i o n - - t h e abuse of power by prosecutors determined to topple their man for political reasons...
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...These maxims apply to corruption as well as they do to street crime...
...In this book, he changes his plea...
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...One is reminded, by this account, of Senator Talmadge's denying his own corruption charges by explaining that at parties people just came up to him and stuffed 20dollar bills into his shirt pocket, which he attributed to friendship and admiration...
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...However, the bargain price of the book has been achieved at the expense of omitting all footnotes, and that makes it no bargain at all to the serious r e a d e r who might like to follow up some of the many fascinating themes Professor Nisbet disCUSSES...
...Small-town life in 16th century France...
...This is an important book on a dauntingly difficult subject...
...But each man had for evidence only the testimony of the others, and no c o r r o b o r a t i n g real e v i d e n c e , like tapes or papers...
...I knew I had done nothing more than every politician charged with the responsibility for raising campaign funds had done," he writes at one point, adding that he "wanted to know as little about the gray areas of fund-raising as, p o s s i b l e . " " I asked for no d e t a i l s , " he explains, "because I wanted to be insulated from a process which always has gray overtones as to legality...
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...Nothing in the book is more offensive than Agnew's insistence that politics is, always and everywhere, corrupt--that "every politician" accepts co.rruption as a "way of life...
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...They had four w i t n e s s e s , each of whom would testify that Agnew had personally been a direct, corrupt participant in selling government favors for cash...
...And he usually gave it in cash, for three reasons...
...Agnew admits that some close collaborators of his were much involved with this way of life...
...A Harvard professor who has obviously got himself into a muddle is cited as asking: "What, then, can a historian tell undergraduates t h a t might help them in this new and unprecedented age...
...Anyone reading the passage about the G e n e r a l ' s " d e a t h t h r e a t " will conclude either that Agnew was unbalanced then or that he is merely touting his book now...
...and third, he knew that in every campaign there was a great need for "walking around money," the legal tencler for paid election-day workers and for other cash needs that did not look quite right on a detailed election expenditure report...
...If he has admirers left, this book should make them weep...
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...This, of course, is Agnew's view...
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...Moreover, given the immense power of prosecutors, just mounting a defense will bankrupt most accused men even if they win a c q u i t t a l . As more and more corruption cases come to trial, many of these same sorts of questions are bound to be raised a g a i n - - i n ABSCAM, for i n s t a n c e , q u e s t i o n s over the ethics of entrapment...
...And in each case, the man testifying was himself in deep trouble with the law and was speaking --under enormous government pressure and t h r e a t s - - t o save his own neck...
...By Laura Martincs...
...Agnew apparently views this as a striking assertion of integrity...
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...Yet he argues that he was innocent of all political corruption charges...
Vol. 13 • August 1980 • No. 8
