Spiro T. Agnew, Richard Nixon's strident point man who railed against the media as "nattering nabobs of negativism" and became the only vice president forced to resign in disgrace, died at age 77.
Agnew died Tuesday afternoon at Atlantic General Hospital in Berlin, near his summer home in Ocean City. Hospital officials refused to release details of his death.Picked by Nixon as his running mate in 1968, Agnew established himself as a national political force by employing a colorful phraseology in criticizing anti-war protesters, liberals and the media.
"We speak of the Ronald Reagan revolution. Spiro Agnew was the John the Baptist for that revolution," said Victor Gold, who was Agnew's campaign press secretary in 1972.
His most famous lines came in a 1970 speech, when he attacked the news media as "nattering nabobs of negativism" and "the hopeless, hysterical hypochondriacs of history."
But Agnew's meteoric six-year rise from county official to Maryland governor to vice president came to an abrupt halt in October 1973, when he pleaded no contest to a single count of income-tax evasion and resigned.
"I thought that some of the things he said during his lifetime were extreme and regrettable, but nonetheless, I mourn his passing and my sympathy is all with his family," said former Sen. George McGovern, defeated by Nixon in the 1972 presidential election.
Feeling that Nixon had sacrificed him in order to mollify Watergate critics, Agnew withdrew from political life, working as a businessman and splitting time between homes in Ocean City and Rancho Mirage, Calif.
In May 1995, he made a rare public appearance, attending a ceremony at the U.S. Senate chamber as his bust was installed among the likenesses of other former vice presidents.
"I'm not blind or deaf to the fact that there are those who feel this is a ceremony that should not take place," Agnew said at the time.
Only one other vice president - John C. Calhoun, who had a political split with President Andrew Jackson - was forced to resign from office. Agnew's was the first resignation stemming from legal problems.
In court, Agnew did not contest the government's charge that he "willfully" evaded paying $13,551.47 in federal income taxes in 1967. Judge Walter E. Hoffman fined him $10,000 and sentenced him to three years of unsupervised probation.
But following the plea, Agnew denied all the government's allegations in the case, including claims that he accepted cash kickbacks from contractors over 10 years while he was Baltimore County executive, governor and vice president.
On Oct. 15, 1973, just five days after his resignation, Agnew told a national TV audience that he resigned to restore "unimpaired confidence and implicit trust" in the vice presidency.
He described his accusers as "self-confessed bribe brokers" and said he had done no wrong.
Agnew was a virtual political unknown on the national scene when he was elected Maryland governor in 1966 because he was considered more liberal than the Democratic candidate. He took the chance Nixon offered him in 1968 and validated the choice with his aggressive campaigning and hard-line statements.
He attracted wide attention with his law-and-order line and harsh ridicule of liberals and Vietnam War protesters, who he said did not speak for the "silent majority."
He derided opponents of the war as "an effete corps of impudent snobs" and labeled national TV commentators "a tiny fraternity of privileged men elected by no one and enjoying a monopoly sanctioned and licensed by the government."
Student protesters, he said, "have never done a productive thing in their lives. They take their tactics from Fidel Castro and their money from daddy."
While many of his controversial comments were planned, some were not. He was criticized as insensitive and even racist after using racial epithets. And at one point in the campaign, he canceled a trip to an inner-city ghetto, saying "When you've seen one slum, you've seen them all."
After leaving office, Agnew worked as a broker or middleman in business deals for an international clientele.