Agneiv The Unexamincd Mau
McDonald, W. Wesley
"Agneiv The Unexamincd Mau", and members of the favored guim will be tempted to impose some form of enforced orthodoxy that will stifle the broad advance in all fronts that is...
...Willie Morris, the...
...Ultimately, men need faith to function...
...It had large windows, turn-ofthe-century-style, which filled the room with light and admitted the breeze of island trade winds...
...The South is my home and I love it, but I left il with an uneasy feeling...
...Without it, there is neither scientific breakthrough nor 'normal" science...
...But men should be aware of this when they begin to study and when they make their pronouncements on what is or is not possible...
...He blamed his methods, his choice of substances...
...The author of this book takes the stance of an extreme civil libertarian and finds reason to side with New Left students and black militants...
...As Baily writes of Durovic's early experiments: "'Most of the time he failed to extract anything...
...During the election, Marsh assured me, and others as well I suppose, that he was "more conservative" than Beall...
...research based on one's faith in an intuition is the very foundation of an advancing science...
...They need confidence in their theories, even in the face of recalcitrant facts that do not seem to fit those theories at first...
...Marsh's no more serve the cause of thoughtful, objective scholarship than those books written by campaign aides to ballyhoo the assets of their candidates...
...Precisely...
...he blamed everything except his theory...
...Those people who thrive on Nixon Agonistes will gobble up this addition to the anti-Administration literature...
...Now every where in the ,South the talk is of money, how to get it and how to make it grow...
...Such remarks as these do not jive with the thinking of the author of this book who criticizes others for being coldhearted...
...In this biographical study of Agnew's political career, Marsh portrays the Vice President as a convictionless politician, an authoritarian personality, a thin-skinned man with a "hyper-reactive ego defense mechanism which was and is always maintained in hair trigger readiness," and if not unintelligent a t least a political incompetent who rose to power in spite of his faults (his upward mobility, writes Marsh, was the ' P e t e r Principle in reverse...
...Therefore, there is much peevish criticism of Agnew here that looks too much like what would be expected from a disgruntled political opportunist whose own star fell when Agnew's was rising...
...The apartment had been built in a time when the demand for rental space had not transformed every inch of ground into stacks of cubicles designed to be inhabited only by moles and modern men...
...This kind of architecturally planned expansiveness has largely disappeared, and 1 was not only pleased that the structure had defied the promoters and lheir bulldozers for so long, but struck by an uncertain nostalgia for the world il represented...
...Marsh's study of Agnew's rise to power cannot be considered in any way a convincing examination of Agnew the man...
...To understand why this book and its point of view must be approached skeptically, it is necessary to look at the unexamined Marsh...
...Marsh's showing on election day in September 1968 was microscopic...
...A gnew The Unexamined Man: A Political Profile by Robert Marsh M. Evans and Company, Inc., $5.95 T here can be no doubt but that this book was intended for a specific constituency...
...The dust jacket tells us that Marsh left Agnew's state administration in 1968 to become a public affairs consultant...
...That he knew, with the intuition of a great scientist, was correct...
...After that, Marsh ceased to be in his public consultant's office for callers - - especially if those callers where calling to collect his campaign debts...
...For decades it lay dormanl, a neglected and still genteel cousin to the barbarian North, harboring its own customs and conventions and dark, whispered secrets...
...W. Wesley McDonald W. Wesley McDo~mld is a graduate student at the State University ol New York and Editor-in-Chief oJ rh~ ~Aii(l(~rher...
...As we reflect further on the fact that as an aide Marsh helped lift Agnew to power, we become more skeptical of Marsh's seriousness in this book...
...Marsh's tergiversations in a period of only two years cannot be understood unless Marsh is a "'political eunuch," or a man without enduring political convictions - - his accusations against Agnew...
...Marsh's own political career, it is important to point out, was at one time tied closely to that of Agnew's...
...Furthermore, he chides Agnew for not being more "progressive" while he was County Executive of Baltimore County and Governor of Maryland...
...16 The Alternative January, 1972 munications, and members of the favored guiM will be tempted to impose some form of enforced orthodoxy that will stifle the broad advance in all fronts that is necessary for the flourishing of a free society...
...Without this kind of faith, life is impossible...
...As for Marsh's observation that Agnew is an insensitive man incapable of empathy for others, especially the poor and disadvantaged, Marsh once remarked solemnly to me that voters were "cattle to be herded" by the successful candidate...
...If they fail to grasp the nature of the commitment based on faith that is necessarily involved in all scientific endeavor, they will fall into a very unscientific hypocrisy...
...Such books as Mr...
...Review The Legacy Of A Superfluous Man Wick Allison o n ; afternoon not long o I was sitting in the living room of a spacious old apartment near the Ala Wai Canal in the Waikiki section of Honolulu...
...It is the hypocrisy of those who claim to speak for "'respectable" medical research that is so galling - - the hypocrisy, the arrogance and the sheer monopolistic power...
...Marsh's point of view, his assertions, his conclusions are all too jaundiced to be taken without great skepticism...
...Durovic needed such a personal commitment in his search for a cancer treatment, even as his AMA counterparts need theirs to deny Krebiozen's effectiveness...
...What the capsule vita neglects to mention is the fact that Marsh became a Republican candidate in the primary for the Maryland Sixth District Congressional seat...
...Is Marsh a slow learner or has he some special reason for fault-finding now...
...He came in last in a long list of candidates who were vying for the Congressional seat...
...At the close of this book, the reader still feels that Agnew is an unexamined man...
...If Agnew was such a louse during those years while County Executive and Governor, and it was obvious that he was an incompetent all along, why did Marsh spend years contributing to his political stardom...
...His primary opponent in that contest was J. Glenn Beall, Jr., now the junior Senator from Maryland...
...Why did it take so long for Marsh to see the obvious evidence of Agnew's faults...
...Indeed, his opposition to gun control legislation (which ~vould have been popular in rural western Maryland), his support of Nixon's candidacy and positions on foreign and domestic issues were all designed to gain support from conservative voters in western Maryland...
...That has been the weakness of organized medicine for the whole of its history...
...However, Marsh the author takes a different position...
...I had felt the same nostalgia before, for I had recently arrived in the Islands afler spending several dreary months in Texas, Lousiana and Georgia, courtesy of Ihe United States Army...
...Much more must be done to understand the Agnew phenomenon in American politics, and it must be done by authors less prejudiced by their personal experiences and failures...
Vol. 5 • January 1972 • No. 4
