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...
...At the close of this book, the reader still feels that Agnew is an unexamined man...
...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...
...The South is my home and I love it, but I left il with an uneasy feeling...
...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...
...Is Marsh a slow learner or has he some special reason for fault-finding now...
...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...
...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...
...That he knew, with the intuition of a great scientist, was correct...
...They need confidence in their theories, even in the face of recalcitrant facts that do not seem to fit those theories at first...
...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...
...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...
...He blamed his methods, his choice of substances...
...Without it, there is neither scientific breakthrough nor 'normal" science...
...Now every where in the ,South the talk is of money, how to get it and how to make it grow...
...Such books as Mr...
...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...
...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...
...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...
...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...
...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...
...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...
...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...
...Without this kind of faith, life is impossible...
...His primary opponent in that contest was J. Glenn Beall, Jr., now the junior Senator from Maryland...
...As Baily writes of Durovic's early experiments: "'Most of the time he failed to extract anything...
...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...
...Marsh's study of Agnew's rise to power cannot be considered in any way a convincing examination of Agnew the man...
...Precisely...
...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...
...Willie Morris, the...
...Why did it take so long for Marsh to see the obvious evidence of Agnew's faults...
...Marsh's point of view, his assertions, his conclusions are all too jaundiced to be taken without great skepticism...
...Ultimately, men need faith to function...
...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...
...Furthermore, he chides Agnew for not being more "progressive" while he was County Executive of Baltimore County and Governor of Maryland...
...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...
...To understand why this book and its point of view must be approached skeptically, it is necessary to look at the unexamined Marsh...
...It had large windows, turn-ofthe-century-style, which filled the room with light and admitted the breeze of island trade winds...
...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...
...Those people who thrive on Nixon Agonistes will gobble up this addition to the anti-Administration literature...
...He came in last in a long list of candidates who were vying for the Congressional seat...
...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...
...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...
...The dust jacket tells us that Marsh left Agnew's state administration in 1968 to become a public affairs consultant...
...That has been the weakness of organized medicine for the whole of its history...
...he blamed everything except his theory...
...research based on one's faith in an intuition is the very foundation of an advancing science...
...However, Marsh the author takes a different position...
...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...
...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...
...Such remarks as these do not jive with the thinking of the author of this book who criticizes others for being coldhearted...
...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...
...Marsh's showing on election day in September 1968 was microscopic...
...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...
...During the election, Marsh assured me, and others as well I suppose, that he was "more conservative" than Beall...
...Marsh's own political career, it is important to point out, was at one time tied closely to that of Agnew's...
Vol. 5 • January 1972 • No. 4
