Agnew at the Ramparts
GLASS, ANDREW J.
Washington - USA AGNEW AT THE RAMPARTS BY ANDREW J. GLASS Washington As Spiro Agnew continues to whip up popular support for his embattled cause, one might ask why the Vice President feels...
...It is against that awful hour that he is now storing his political acorns...
...Still, it is hard to feel sorry for a politician whose hair shirt fits so badly...
...Although government directories list both men as members of the Nixon Administration, they are, in truth, self-propelled political missile systems...
...In fact, the gravest aspect of this pathetic business is the degree to which it has diverted Nixon and his senior staff from dealing with their pressing problems...
...At the same time, he demands a hearing by the House of Representatives where rules of evidence are sketchy to the point of extinction, and where the political tides would soon engulf any such proceeding, thwarting the possibility that the lawmakers could reach a judicious verdict...
...In addition, the Vice President still enjoys a substantial bloc of support in the House, lodged mainly on the political Right...
...2) focus attention on their own not always savory money dealings...
...There is talk in some quarters, too, that if Agnew forces a reluctant House to impeach him, new interest would develop in taking parallel action against Nixon...
...Washington - USA AGNEW AT THE RAMPARTS BY ANDREW J. GLASS Washington As Spiro Agnew continues to whip up popular support for his embattled cause, one might ask why the Vice President feels compelled to seek allies even while he freely acknowledges that his political ruin is quite beyond redemption...
...The further one moves from Washington, the more one encounters a blending of these scandals as generally reflecting a corrupt Administration that has lost the people's trust...
...Theoretically, Richardson could be let go whereas Agnew, elected to his office, would have to be impeached...
...At a minimum, the President would face the dreary prospect of serving out the rest of his term with one or more acting attorneys general at the Justice Department, for the Senate would probably refuse to confirm a successor, no matter how attractive the choice...
...He portrays himself as a resolute martyr, the victim of gross injustice, the target of vengeful men left behind in the Maryland political swamplands, and the object of dark conspiracies in high places...
...And when that happens to a man, it becomes a lot harder for him to find a place that is safe and warm if his luck runs out...
...That support would erode quickly were he to be indicted and were the President to attack his decision not to resign...
...In his excellent 1972 biography, What Makes Spiro Run, Joseph Albright noted that Agnew served in the Army through all of World War II without ever making captain...
...Finally, Agnew's lawyers suggested that their client might be interested in leaving office in return for blanket immunity from prosecution and face-saving statements by all parties...
...In such a game, they probably reasoned, he would hardly risk facing trial as a common criminal...
...No sooner would he make an offer than the other side would turn him down...
...Richardson promptly went to work with Agnew's high-priced attorneys, trying to fashion a bargain...
...As Acnew is undoubtedly aware, the House has no stomach for impeaching him because most congressmen fear such a spectacle would: (1) polarize their constituents, and in the process possibly cost them their jobs...
...Were it not for Watergate, Nixon would probably have found a means to stifle the Agnew affair or, had that course proved untenable, to force him out...
...Then, if he doesn't have the good sense to resign, we'll see about granting him [an impeachment] hearing...
...He bemoans the breech of secrecy on matters before the grand jury...
...It is easy to see how Nixon and Richardson apparently concluded that Agnew would resign as soon as they put their cards on the table...
...Fortunately, the Agnew affair has yet to involve the country in a solemn constitutional crisis, as some would have it...
...For his part, Mondale, with equal aplomb, makes much of Agnew's presumed innocence while delicately hinting that any honorable Vice President so encumbered would quickly clean out his desk regardless of where he stood in the courts...
...Of course, the politicians hasten to add that much depends on whether the President refuses to surrender the Watergate tapes in the face of a clear-cut order to do so by the Supreme Court...
...At least one "leak," though, came from a trusted Agnew insider...
...The President cannot call in the Vice President and tell him to go because he cannot risk the chance of being turned down...
...Agnew's partisans, employing the tunnel vision peculiar to the retinues of minor princes, maintain that the fresh scandal serves Nixon's interests by helping to drive Watergate from the headlines...
...he maintains that the nation should not be saddled with a caretaker Vice President...
...The circumstances, in short, seemed ripe for a deal...
...and (3) create political tremors in a landscape already badly scarred by Watergate...
...Instead, the President is a hapless spectator in a vicious alley fight between the Vice President and Attorney General Elliot Richardson...
...In keeping with his would-be statesmanesque image, Kennedy has chosen to swim against the tide...
...But is a man accused of bribery and extortion entitled to move into the White House should Nixon's heart stop beating...
...A man is entitled to be presumed innocent until proven guilty...
...When Albright asked Agnew to describe the most unpleasant experience he ever had, the former lieutenant replied: "During my service time, in the Batde of the Bulge, I slept on ice for a week...
...More to the point, most of the leaks in the Agnew case have come from persons who regard him, on the basis of the evidence in hand, as unfit to succeed to the Presidency, and who have sought to deny the White House the option of ducking the issue...
...I was so cold that when I finally got into a warm place, the simple pleasure of having the heat from the stove wash over me was one of the most enjoyable sensations I have ever known...
...But once the elaborate packaging is stripped off, the message is starkly clear: They will refuse to confirm anyone who does not publicly renounce Presidential aspirations for 1976...
...But then "Ted" Agnew, the Episcopalian son of Theofraste Anagnosto-poulous, is not known for doting on his parental heritage...
...Its purpose was to lay a deliberately false trail, thus providing the Vice President with an opportunity to deny the allegations against him as "damned lies...
...The ancient Greeks, after all, fashioned a philosophy around the notion that anyone foolish enough to deny his destiny is bound to come to grief...
...Like most politicians, Agnew wants it both ways...
...As an Ohio Democrat observed at a recent Sunday brunch, "An Agnew impeachment would certainly oil the House machinery...
...For the moment, with the Vice President's eventual departure from office being viewed as a certainty, the most widely discussed question on Capitol Hill is: Who will succeed Agnew...
...Even if Richardson had agreed to resignation-for-amnesty, I doubt Agnew would have bought it...
...The President's staff, however, recognizes that the Agnew investigation and Watergate are twin carcasses rotting away on the same barren shore...
...They contend that given the inherent trauma involved in taking action against a Vice President, the White House and the Attorney General must have been assured that the Maryland prosecutors had an exceptionally strong case before letting them go to the grand jury...
...leaks to the press, he asserts in the press, have deprived him of every man's right to be judged fairly...
...Having taken the low road at Chap-paquiddick, Kennedy now seems to feel he must travel the political high road at every turn and refrain from taking mean partisan advantage of his adversaries...
...The full fury of the latest Washington storm promises to break if and when Agnew is actually indicted...
...There is a transparent sleekness to Agnew's defense...
...Without stooping to discuss the sordid topics before the grand jurors in Baltimore, the Vice President swears he is innocent as a lamb...
...A well-placed Republican friend of mine noted the other day, "I suppose, given the circumstances, a decent man would resign...
...Yet, quite to the contrary, such potential Democratic Presidential aspirants as Edward M. Kennedy and Walter Mondale are skirting the issue, presumably because they see no political points to be won from Agnew-baiting...
...Yet to dump Richardson would be to risk the possibility of his declaring a holy war against (still another) cover-up attempt...
...Watergate, of course, has crippled Nixon's ability to act decisively...
...The tragedy of Spiro Agnew is that as his appetites grew, the simple pleasures no longer sufficed...
...He has apparently decided that he is better off taking his chances at the bar of justice while still in office than drifting into the nether world of ousted Vice Presidents...
...The House Democratic leaders are also minding their public manners, although one of them, a jovial soul, said privately: "Let the son-of-a-bitch be indicted...
...But then a decent man wouldn't have stuffed his wallet with petty kickbacks...
...Most politicians here believe an indictment is inevitable...
...Under the circumstances, the Democratic hierarchy in Washington might be expected to pressure the President in all sorts of ways, public and private, to lean on Agnew before the situation becomes intolerable...
...In his current weakened posture, Nixon also fears some sort of undefined retribution from the political Right, which has come to regard Agnew as its man in the firm...
...The President, I am told, grabbed at the deal until Richardson informed him that such an arrangement risked a revolt in the ranks at Justice...
...The Democratic leaders are wrapping their signals to Nixon in large wads of political wool...
Vol. 56 • October 1973 • No. 20
