One Minute Chronicle: The Real Reason Why Spiro Agnew Resigned

While flames were engulfing the Nixon presidency, Vice President Spiro Agnew (1918 - 1996) resigned his office pleading nolo contendre on October 10, 1973. The real reason for his departure is much more disturbing.

 

The ostensible occasion for Agnew's resignation was charges of income tax evasion on bribe money he accepted as governor of Maryland in 1967, which by today's standards was a petty crime involving a mere 100,000 or so in bribes, although later charges increased the amount to over a quarter of a million dollars.

 

So the fast rising star of Agnew was an exhausted nova within 10 years of his discovery in 1962 by Nelson Rockefeller who was a king maker in the Republican party. Agnew had risen from complete obscurity to Vice President within a span under 10 years. Clearly someone was behind his rapid ascent.

 

Yet Agnew was probably oblivious to the machinations swirling about him. Wherever Rockefeller was, crime, murder, and corruption were not far behind. More than likely Agnew was groomed as a sacrificial lamb in the power politics which were to overcome him in the Nixon presidency. Indeed, Nixon himself was a Rockefeller stooge who would fall victim to the same conspiracies which finished Agnew's career.

 

According to Agnew's biography, the real reason for his resignation was a murder threat from Nixon's chief of staff Alexander Haig, a major player in the political wars raging in Washington since the coup of 1963.

 

This threat explains the reason for the quick and quiet departure of Agnew. He could have easily stonewalled, dissembled, obfuscated until the cows came home, but those tactics become untenable when a murderer threatens you with murder.

 

We do not believe that Nixon was behind the threat - a resignation of a vice president during a political crisis is the last thing a president needed, Nixon's remarks about his safety being insured by the threat of an Agnew presidency notwithstanding.

 

Haig was the Rockefeller - Bush Crime Syndicate henchman hired to eliminate not only Agnew, but Nixon as well. Haig was indeed the Deep Throat of Watergate fame who proved to be Nixon's undoing.

Copyright 2014 Tony Bonn. All rights reserved.