Spiro T. Agnew Biography Quotes 13 Report mistakes

Early Life and Education
Spiro Theodore Agnew was born in 1918 in Baltimore, Maryland, the son of a Greek immigrant father and an American mother from Virginia. Raised in a working-class neighborhood, he attended public schools and grew up between the cultural influences of his father's immigrant experience and his mother's deep American roots. He briefly attended Johns Hopkins University before financial pressures and war interrupted his studies. He married Elinor "Judy" Agnew in 1942, and together they raised a family that remained a steady presence through the dramatic turns of his public life. After the Second World War, Agnew returned to his education, earning a law degree from the University of Baltimore and entering the Maryland bar, which set him on a path toward public service and politics.

Military Service
Agnew served in the United States Army during World War II, where he was commissioned as an officer and deployed to the European theater. Like many men of his generation, the war forged in him a sense of discipline and civic duty. He later continued his association with the military through the Army Reserve and was called to service during the Korean War. This combination of wartime leadership and peacetime reserve service helped shape his pragmatic, order-oriented political persona.

Law Career and Entry into Politics
Returning to Baltimore, Agnew worked in insurance and practiced law, acquiring a reputation as a practical, detail-minded attorney. He entered public life through local appointments, notably service on the Baltimore County Board of Zoning Appeals, where he built name recognition as a reform-minded figure. He aligned with the Republican Party during a period when Maryland politics were dominated by Democrats, presenting himself as a corruption-fighter and fiscal conservative with a moderate stance on civil rights. In 1962 he won election as Baltimore County Executive, promising honest administration and modernized governance. He emphasized professional management, budgeting discipline, and planning, a technocratic approach that resonated with suburban voters.

Governor of Maryland
Agnew was elected Governor of Maryland in 1966 and took office in 1967. As governor, he advanced measures on fair housing and civil rights, environmental protection, and modernizing state government. His tenure was tested by the national upheavals of 1968. Following the assassination of Martin Luther King Jr., unrest in Baltimore led him to summon local Black leaders and, in a contentious meeting, chastise them for not curbing violence, an intervention that provoked criticism but also elevated his national profile as a tough, law-and-order executive. In this period he balanced, sometimes uneasily, between moderate reform and the escalating rhetoric of social discipline that would later define his national role.

1968 Campaign and Path to the Vice Presidency
Agnew's rise to the national ticket in 1968 was swift. Richard Nixon, seeking a running mate who could appeal to suburban moderates while signaling firmness on crime and protest, selected Agnew after consultations with party strategists and key figures such as Senator Strom Thurmond. Agnew's relative newness on the national stage and his gubernatorial record made him an attractive choice. The Nixon-Agnew ticket defeated the Democratic ticket headed by Hubert Humphrey, and Agnew was sworn in as the 39th Vice President of the United States in January 1969.

Vice Presidency and Public Voice
As vice president, Agnew became the administration's most visible and combative surrogate. With speeches crafted by aides and writers including William Safire and Pat Buchanan, he attacked the news media, campus radicals, and what he cast as an elite establishment out of touch with mainstream Americans. His barbed phrases, most famously "nattering nabobs of negativism", cemented his image as Nixon's "attack dog". He also chaired the National Aeronautics and Space Council, lending support to an ambitious post-Apollo vision for American space exploration even as the White House weighed budget realities. Inside the Nixon orbit, managed by figures like H. R. Haldeman and John Ehrlichman, Agnew was both an asset on the stump and a potential future contender, a vice president whose prominence grew with the administration's electoral success in 1972.

Investigation, Plea, and Resignation
Agnew's career unraveled in 1973 when a federal investigation into corruption in Maryland uncovered evidence that he had accepted cash payments during his years as Baltimore County Executive and Governor, and that some payments continued into his vice presidency. The probe was led by U.S. Attorney George Beall in Maryland, with oversight at the Justice Department under Attorney General Elliot Richardson. Agnew publicly proclaimed his innocence and initially vowed not to resign, arguing that a sitting vice president could not be indicted. As evidence mounted, negotiations resulted in a plea arrangement. On October 10, 1973, Agnew pleaded no contest to a single felony count of federal income tax evasion, resigned the vice presidency the same day, was fined and placed on probation, and departed public office in disgrace. The vacancy triggered the first use of the 25th Amendment's process for filling a vice-presidential vacancy; President Nixon nominated House Minority Leader Gerald Ford, who was confirmed and later became president after Nixon's own resignation.

Later Life
Following his resignation, Agnew left political life and returned to the private sector as a business consultant. He was disbarred in Maryland and, in a civil action brought by the state, later agreed to repay funds tied to his earlier corruption. He wrote a political novel, The Canfield Decision, and published a combative memoir, Go Quietly... Or Else, in which he defended himself and criticized prosecutors and the press. Although he occasionally appeared at Republican events, he mostly kept a low profile, living a quieter life far from the glare that had once made him a household name. Judy Agnew remained a central figure in his private world, providing continuity amid the fallout of his abrupt fall from national power.

Death and Legacy
Spiro T. Agnew died in 1996 in Maryland. He was one of only two vice presidents in American history to resign from office, the other being John C. Calhoun in the nineteenth century. Agnew's trajectory, from suburban reformer to governor, from a nationally prominent vice president to a figure undone by corruption, encapsulated the turbulence of American politics in the late 1960s and early 1970s. He left behind a complicated legacy: an enduring example of the political power of combative rhetoric, a cautionary tale about public integrity, and a pivotal footnote in the sequence that brought Gerald Ford to the vice presidency and then the presidency. His collaborations and clashes with figures such as Richard Nixon, Elliot Richardson, George Beall, Strom Thurmond, William Safire, and Pat Buchanan reveal how personality, rhetoric, and the rule of law intersected in an era defined by crisis and transformation.

Our collection contains 13 quotes who is written by Spiro, under the main topics: Witty One-Liners - Justice - Freedom - Sports - Equality.

Other people realated to Spiro: Sargent Shriver (Politician), Robert. L. Ehrlich (Politician), Rachel Maddow (Journalist), Ron Ziegler (Politician), Edmund S. Muskie (Politician)