Good afternoon. Good afternoon. Thank you, peg. I appreciate that. Im tuajuanda jordan, president of st. Marys college of maryland, the National Public honors college. It makes me smile the say that. I am happy to welcome you to this discussion with the authors of this book. This event is sponsored by the center for the study of democracy here at st. Marys college of maryland and our department of history. The center is a skbroint initiative of the college in st. Marys city, the site of marylands first capital. The centers goal is to promote understanding of democratic values, traditions and institutions through the exploration of contemporary and historical issues. Dr. Antonio ugas yur is the director of the center. He joins us here this afternoon. Thank you, tony, for being here. Charlie musgrove, chair of the department of history here at the college, is also with us this afternoon. Our History Department at st. Marys college is pretty active, offering many opportunities for research and options for studying abroad. Courses and programs in this Department Help our students develop a deeper understanding of themselves, their culture, and humanity in general. Thank you, charlie, for being here this afternoon. And now i would like to introduce our guests. Charles j. Holden. I know, it sounds so incredibly official. Chuck is a professor of history here at st. Marys college of maryland. He is the author of the new Southern University Academic Freedom and liberalism at unc. And Zack Messitte is the president of Ripon College in ripon, wisconsin, where he is also a professor of politics and government. He is coeditor of understanding the global community. He was also the very first director of the center for the study of democracy here at st. Marys college. I would say welcome back. Thank you. But zack has been the president at ripon since 2012, and he has remained engaged in st. Marys community through both the center for the study of democracy and his family, judge peter messitte, and susan messitte. Welcome, susan, who both have a home just north of campus. The messittes are indeed a family of service with a strong sense of community as evidenced by susan for many years serving as the president of the Colleges Foundation board of directors. Zack and chuck, along with a third author, gerald podaira professor of history at Lawrence University in appleton, wisconsin wrote republican pop list, spiro agnew and the origin of Donald Trumps america. As most of you know, spiro agnew was Vice President under president Richard Nixon. Agnew resigned from office in 1973. I was just a child then. You can tell, right . After pleading no contest to a tax evasion charge. Incidentally, agnew was also marylands 55th governor, serving from 1967 to 1969. Published by the university of virginia press, republican populist is described as fascinating political portrait of agnew from his preVice President ial career to his scandaldriven fall from office and beyond. The book explores agnews role as one of the Founding Fathers of the modern Republican Party, a gop that represents the silent majority. The publisher further notes that in order to understand a current internal struggles of the Republican Party we need to fully appreciate agnew, known as a populist every man and prototypical middle class driving who was one of the first proponents of what would become the ideology of Donald Trumps gop, end quote. President messitte and professor holder are here with us this afternoon to celebrate the publication of their new book and to share with us some ensights about agnew and the modern Republican Party, how we got to where we are today. Thank you both for smarg your insights with tsa Marys College and the broader local community. Without further ado i ask you the join me in welcoming Charles Holden and Zack Messitte. [ applause ] thank you president jordan. First let me just say how beautiful campus looks. This building in particular when i first came to st. Marys i was in this building. It looked a lot different then. This is just absolutely spectacular. What a honor that the center has a nice suite of offices in this space. It is really, really stunning. And thank you antonio as well for hosting and for being the director of the center. It again is such an honor to be here since this was the first job i had in higher education. Indulge me for a minute. I do want to just talk about the center before we get going. It actually plays a big role in why chuck and i decided to write this book along with jerry podair. So 17 years ago a group of faculty administrators, staff from the college as well as members of the community got together to create a center that would promote civil discourse about democracy. It was based on marylands history. What were the lessons that we could learn from marylands history that told us about current events. It was a great idea. It still is today. I am thrilled that it continues forward. So this job that i had from 2002 to 2007 was a job that i loved. It was organizing discussions between students, faculty, policy makers, diplomats, historians journalists on a range of topics that were important to marylanders and were pattern to americans. And that mission of course is more important today than ever before. As i will be out in the audience today i see former colleagues, friends, mentors, a lot of people that i admired as a junior faculty member here. I want to recognize a few of them briefly. Breefr michael cane of the Political Science department followed me as the centers director. He and i cowrote the original National Endow men for humanities grant that personal inspectly funded the center and its operations. He has been a great advocate for discussions in civil dialogue from the beginning and also someone i have admired and always looked up to. Helen and Tom Dougherty oh, yes they are here. Thank you. They are here. I wanted to recognize them. Helen was a long time member of the Sociology Department here at st. Marys the great supporter of the center. She and tom put forward their time, intellect and their treasure to make sure that the center was possible. I want to thank them all for all they have done for me and for the college and the center. They are still a big part of why we are here today. So i thank them. There are lots of other people i could call out but i want to name two others who are not here because they passed away in recent years but their presence looms large. J. Frank raliegh. I know those of you who are students here see his portrait in the great hall. J. Frank was in the legislature in the 1960s. He was also a great friend of the center. He knew spiro agnew personally. We spent a lot of hours together at the roost which some of you will remember and at listenedas cafe talking about paper politics and history. I think he would love this new book and the talk here today since he loved the state so much and his commitment to the center and word and deed and his estate is critical. The other person i would like to recognize is ben bradlee. Ben was wound of the founders of the center. It was our great good fortune to get to know him. When i was the centers director i was the person who was supposed to organize the bradley lecture in journalism here at the college. I know you all are having your bradley lecture later this week. It is terrific that jason resign is going to be here. Thats a great person. But the bradley lecture was more or less a call i would make to ben and he would say who do you want to have . I would run through all the great names in american journalism, ben would choose one and they would come. These people would come down to the college and then we would go to his house across the river here at portobello and talk can them. Thats where the idea for this become was born. The speaking for the bradley lecture in 2005s with the Washington Post columnist Richard Cohen who was the bureau chief of the state house correspondent in annapolis in 1973 when spiro agnew resigned. Chuck and i got to spend a great evening at portobello with ben and with Richard Cohen after a talk that he gave here on campus about corruption in maryland politics. We laughed a lot that evening. In fact one of the things thats indelible that stays in my mind is richard said to ben, now i cant remember whether you said this or whether jason row barred said this in all the president s men but it doesnt matter. It is all the same. You are one and the same. I thought what a great line. Because it is true. We talked a lot that night about agnew and chuck and i realized that no one had done a real look at his legacy in more than 30 years. At the time we wrote an occasional paper about it for the center of democracy and we started research rching a book. We spent a lot of time going through his papers at the library at the university of married. Then of course in 2016 donald trump was elected president and we realized that agnew among others had was more than an ab secure Vice President and baltimore executive and maryland governor. He had a direct line to where the Republican Party had ended up. Much like the mission of the center we saw a lesson from marylands history in contemporary politics. So in the spring of 2016 the american Political Science association poled 40 scholars to name the worst Vice President in the last half century. Their consensus choice was an easy one, spiro agnew. We disagree. Thats what we are going to talk to you about today. Richard nixons selection of agnew in 1968 proved to be one of the most underrated consequential decisions in american important politics and reverberates half a century later. Agnews policy contributions during his five years in office were limited. But he reshaped the trajectory of the Republican Party. His suburb on middle class image missioned with his style launched his meteoric rise. This is very important n 1960 spiro agnew ran for Circuit Court judge in Baltimore County and lost. He came in fifth out of five. Eight years later he was president of the United States. Our book is not a biography. We place agnew within the context of the changing nature of the Republican Party over the past century. This is important. Here i am going to pick up a little bit of what our third author talks about in the chapters he authored. For up in of the 20th century the Republican Party was the party of wall street, country clubs, Prep School Students who went to Ivy League Schools and worked for banks. It was not the party of the common man. The partys power center lay in the big monied interests who were blamed for the great depression. During the 1936 president ial campaign almost half of the contributions to the Republican National committee came from the banking and the brokerage centers. The republican president ial candidate that year al of landon ran on a platform of individual responsibility, fiscal restraint, efficiency and government decentralism. He was crushed by Franklin Roosevelt and the Democratic New Deal Coalition which employed the interventionist state, government deficit spending administrative bureaucracy and the prolabor policies to win a close to unanimous Electoral College victory for fdr and the democrats. They won every state except for maine and vermont. Roosevelt situated the forgotten man at the heart of his political appeal. His position was that the Republican Party bore the responsibility for the forgotten mans plight. They were on the wrong side of an elemental economic shift after the stock market crashed in october 1929 and the onset of the great depression. Roosevelt, a working class supporter, declared at only man we had in the white house who would understand that my boss is a son of bitch. How about the party of harding and coolidge and hoover become the represent of the White Working Class. How did speara agnew, Ronald Reagan and donald trump change the views of their parties in the space of half a century . Agnews story helps illuminate this turnaround. Now i will turn to chuck to talk about it. Thank you zack. I will cover two of the points our book makes. First, that agnews combative style predates his sim as nixons Vice President. And his success in recruiting white southerners to switch to the Republican Party in the late 60s and little 70s. A little background. He was born in 1918, the son of a greek immigrant father. Like many others of his generation his path led him oum of the city and into the 1950s and 60s middle class. He was a world war ii veteran. He fought at the battle of the bulge. He recalled sleeping on ice. He went to university of baltimore at a time when it wasnt accredited. He moved out of the suburbs to Baltimore County after the war and lived very much the middle class life. He belonged to the pta. He was the father of four children. Husband to his stayathome wife judy. For relaxation and entertainment, he played golf. He was a huge fan of the baltimore colts and he loved playing pingpong. One of his many admirers likened himself to agnew as one of the, quote, conservative, hard working, middle class, reasonably normal people. Or, as Richard Nixon would call them, the silent majority. In what we see in agnew as a walking talking personification of the silent majority is that while on the outside the experience looked very comfortable, tv in the living room, air conditioning works cars in the garage, that for many of these middle class strivers life felt precarious and unstable. As the sociologist William White wrote somewhere lies the good life but it vanishes as quickly as one finds it. Agnew himself, in the early 60s, said the following. In our homes, we are bombarded with demands. Watch this show. Read that book. Listen to this program. Attend that meeting. Go to this lecture. Take that course. Join this club. Play with the children. Mow the lawn. Fix the screen. The list seems endless. It was, he added. It is no wonder we feel harassed and frustrated. We barely have time to think. So in response and this is key for our view of agnew. In his political career then spiro agnew offered moral clarity and utter certainty. He must be right, hes so certain, that struck a cord with this nervous middle class of the 1960s. But the certainty carried with it a corollary that if things didnt go agnews way there must have been trickery and underhandedness involved. I will give you one example here. Agnew in late 50s sat on the Baltimore County board of appeals a board that dealt with such matters such as zoning disputes which in a growing place like Baltimore County is actually a important position. 1961, the Baltimore County council all democrats decided not the reappoint agnew to the board. While ago knew blamed partisanship for his removal which was probably the case he also and significantly for our book portrayed himself as the victim of darker forces whereas he was the aggrieved warrior for justice against the local elite. He hinted at conspiracy and charged that an underground campaign had been waged against him. It really wasnt underground at all. The local Democratic Power structure he boasted was, and i am quoting afraid they cant control me, but he said, i am not going lie down and take it. In the final meet where his removal was made official people nearly came to blows over the decision. In this episode, agnew, despite his always calm exterior showed an early ability to conspiracy passions to get under peoples skin, and to excite those who relished his lashing out at the elite. He was already making a maim nar himself as a straight shooting politician developing the art of attacking pope entz verbally but claiming he was calmly rationally telling it like it is. And his supporters in Baltimore County loved it. The tragic days of early april, 1968, with the urban unrest after Martin Luther kings assassination then launched agnews career at the highest level. Following kings murder, agnew, now marylands governor met with baltimores africanamerican leaders as the uprising and protests build into day three. Around 100 american leaders gathered for what they thought would be a dialogue with the governor. Instead, agnew attacked hess audience for having failed to push back against the radicalism of groups like the student nonviolent coordinating committee. Consider the optics of this meeting. Surrounded by the Baltimore City Police Commissioner who was white, the head of the Maryland National guard, also white, and the head of the maryland state police, also white. Agnew literally pointed at his audience and charged that quote the silence of most of you here today in the face of those radicals that led to baltimores unrest. Now, he said, parts of our cities lie in ruins. He continued, you know who lit the fires. They were not lit in honor of your great fallen leader. Nor were they lit from an overwhelming sense of frustration and despair. Rather, agnew said, the fires of baltimore were quote kindled by the advocates of violence. His audience began to file out almost immediately. To be lectured to and blamed at this particular moment and in this particular setting was more than they were willing to accept. Backing up for a moment, after agnews clash with the county council he had rallied to win the 1962 race for the Baltimore County executive. In 19 6 he easily won the republican nomination for governor. In the 1966 governors race, the state Democratic Party for one last time nominated a segregationist, george mahoney. Against mahoney the support of the block vote almost guaranteed agnews election. Now the sense of betrayal was palpable. But tellingly for the backlash years of the late 60s the Baltimore Sun as well as agnews office reported that the positive reaction to his comments overwhelmed the negative. By one count, agnews office received over 1,100 letters of support to just 69 opposed. The letters to the editor in the sun revealed solid local approval of agnews remarks. Were proud to be republicans, one wrote. And another, im thankful to hear that the white people will have a strong voice in government. There were also very pronounced law and order and tell it like it is themes in these letters to the sun. One by signed by 50 Baltimore Police officers who noted that in their view i am quoting it has been a long time since we have heard a politician who had the guts to bring it out in the open and lay it on the line as you did yesterday. Meanwhile as this conflict unfolded a Young Political staffer named pat buchanan began to feed information on agnew to his boss, Richard Nixon. Nixon had rehabilitated his career after his defeat to john kennedy in 1960 and thennis stunning loss in the california gofrors race of 1962. By 1968 eddie merged as the clear frontrunner for the republican nomination. An even more Surprising Development that year, however, was the rise of George Wallace as an independent candidate with his bombastic style, wallace appealed to the anticivil rights, antigreat society, provietnam war voter that the republicans had to have. But nixon wanted to maintain the statesmanlike image he had worked so hard to create since the dark days of 1962. How do reach those wallace supporters while appearing to be above the fray . Pick a running mate to do it for it. So it was that spiro agnew became the surprise choice for Vice President at the Republican National convention that august. In under appeal to white middle class and working class voters, nixon and agnew were helped immensely by the disaster outside offous democratic National Convention in chicago that year. The Television Audience witnessed it inially scenes of street protest, heavy handed policing outside the convention hall. Inside the hall, Democratic Leaders like criticized the Chicago Police and chicago mayor Richard Daleys gestapo tap ticks as daily responded with an antisemitic slur that lip readers were able to detect on television. Agnew stump speeched that fall and played off the radicalism that the democrats displayed in chicago. He predicted with aics in on agnew victory instead of radicalism american would experience i am quoting dull things like patriotism, dull things like incentive, dull things like law and order. To the student hecklers agnew came up with clever retorts. After antiprotesters in oregon had been removed, he equipped, now that the delegation in hanoi has left we can continue. He went after other hecklerser. Ing that you i am quoting they have never done a productive thing in their lives they take their tactics from castro and their money from daddy. In the end, as we all know, the nixon agnew team won in a close race and the evidence is clear that agnew help draw in the find of voter that nixon needed to win. Let me shift directions here to talk about agnews success in appealing to white southerners. Already by the end of his firstier as Vice President , as his stump speech regularly laid into the antiwar movement, the black power movement, the counterculture, et cetera, the New York Times already was reporting that agnew was quote one of the most popular men in the south, and, quote, the new leader in the drive to expand republican strength in the south. By 1971, agnew is even being hailed as dixies favorite. Agnews message resonated with the white southern constituency that in this era the Civil Rights Act and Voting Rights act felt abandoned and threatened by the increasingly liberal Democratic Party. Despite being the Vice President of the United States, he also shared their resentment of the elites. Having been mocked by columnists, comedians, and cartoonists since he had been named as nixons running mate, agnew told a predominantly white audience in alabama that he understood what it was like to quote wake up each modern to learn that some prominent man or institution that is has implied that you are a bigot, a racist or a fool. Harry dent a political adviser for nixon reported tois boss that southerners were quote ecstatic over the Vice President s recent series of speeches. He urged nixon to keep deploying agnew to the south to quote take full advantage of the Current Situation and to try to get more switchovers. That was the word they used, to the Republican Party. Nixon agreed. So agnew continued to pay special attention to the south, and it worked. Agnews papers are filled with glowing letters from southern journalists, politicians, disgruntled southern democrats from this time, a testament to the success he had in helping to reshape the gop during these years. Typical of these letters was one from congressman James Collins of texas who wrote, as you can tell when you were in new orleans your message really does come through loud and clear in the south. You are doing Tremendous Service for the country as the spokesman for the silent majority. By the end of 1969, meanwhile, the New York Times was reporting that, quote, the Vice President is cutting seriously into mr. Wallaces base of strength in the south. Many observers believed that mr. Agnews southern popularity may have surpassed mr. Wallaces. With impressive foresight, roy reed of the New York Times noted that local southern democrats feared that i am quoting the Vice President is the cutting edge of the republican threat, that could eventually cause the once solidly democratic south to become not just a twoparty region but predominantly republican. 1971, when there was some discussion that agnew might be bumped off the ticket it was his southern supporters who rallied to his defense. Jesse helms of North Carolina warned that quote if the president is persuaded to replace mr. Agnew, then he will lose a vast amount of the vital conservative support he enjoyed in 1968. One of helmss constituents wrote while he had worked on nixons campaign in 68 that he was waiting to see if he was quote going to dump spiro agnew in 1972. If agnew is dumped he said come election time i could go fishing that day. Nixon and agnew swept the south in their landslide win over George Mcgovern in 1972. Looking ahead, white southerners in particular were among the most enthusiast particular in anticipating an agnew president ial run in 1976. As the gop county chairman from North Carolina wrote to agnew after the 72 election, quote, a new wind is blowing in the political life of the south. If you decide to go for the number one spot, we are for you. I am of the opinion this applies to the solid south. One cannot help but notice this letter writer now used solid south to mean a solid republican south, with that i will turn it back to zack in i am going to pick up the story thats probably most familiar to many of you in the room who know maryland politics and history. Thats spiro agnew after he becomes Vice President. I want to go somewhat quickly because we want to get to your questions and talk about it that way. When he is nominated to be Vice President , he stands up and notes the improbability of the moment. Nobody knows who he is. In fact people there is a headline that says spiro who . A significantersage of people who when spold think spiro agnew is some sort of shell fish. He is unknown and comes out of nowhere. See the parallels here to where particularly the current president is. He calls a Baltimore Sun reporter of japanese american decent a fat jap. He called polish americans pollacks. He calls Hubert Humphrey a communist and accuses him of being a mccarthyite. Some of the things you see today you saw then. There is a classic in the 168 Democratic Campaign ad against agnew that says agnew for Vice President , and someone is laughing his tearically in the background. And the tagline is, this wouldnt be so funny if it wasnt so serious. President johnson gives agnew credit for helping nixon win the election, particularly border states. Agnew initially it looks like he is going to have a prominent role in the new administration. He is give an office in the west wing, a first for a Vice President. He is given a highprofile, he is invited by president nixon to florida to have a conference before inauguration. And it likes like he is going to have prominent role. What is clear from the beginning is he is way out of his league. His staff is not used to playing on the national stage. He is given ribboncutting type responsibilities, low level assignments. Hes bored in the first few months that he is Vice President. You can see this in his notes. He starts to give a series of red meat speeches in the fall of 1969 that culminates in his most famous speech, one that is ranked in the top 50 most important american political speeches. He does it near to chucks home taupe, in des moines iowa at the midwestern regional republican conference where he takes on the need media. I am going to quote from it. He says this is broadcast on all three networks. Preempted National Broadcasting for a Vice President ial speech. He says a tiny can closed group of privileged men, these commentators and producers live and work in theeio graphical and intellectual confines of wshz and new york cities both cities bask in their own provincialalism. We can deduce these men thus read the same newspapers and draw their political views from the same resources. Worse they talk to one another providing artificial reinforcement to their shared viewpoints. The impact was immediate. The networks on which he focused receives tens of thousands of telegrams,est mo of them agreeing with the Vice President. The speech had been written by pat buchanouchanan and nixon hag hand in the editing and writing of it. Buchanan in his autobiography of his life says this is the speech that flicks the scab off of it all. It is the beginning of fox news. Ales saw this as the first shot in the battle against the liberal media. Agnew continues through the spring and fall of 1969 and 70. He goes after College President like you and i president jordan. Goes after antiwar protesters, he goes after the idea of affirmative action. All of this while Richard Nixon is quiet. He doesnt have to be the person out there talking. He gives lincoln day luncheons all over the midwest. The tone of those talks are clear pretrumpian. In the 1970 midterm elections he goes after liberal republicans, charld goodell, of course he is thor if a of the commissioner of the nfl right now. In the nixon tapes he ridicules agnew and he wants the drop him and replace him with john conley on the 1972 ticket but that prominent republicans, Strom Thurmond and Barry Goldwater wouldnt let it happen. So they are reelected in a landslide in 1972. Spiro is named the frontrunner for 7. There is a Bumper Sticker that runs spiro of 76. But as watergate begins to unspool, agnew all of a sudden looks like hes in a very good position because hes so far out of nixons orbit. He has absolutely nothing to do with watergate. So jeb mcgruder, who was an nixon aide, some of you who are watergate students will remember. He was playing tennis with agnew, and agnew asks what the hell is going on in mcgruder says, my instinct was to be candid. It was our operation, we screwed up, we are trying to take care of it. Agnew says in that case i dont think we ought to discuss it anymore. He was right on. He knew stay away from this. Basically at the same time in the spring and summer of 1973, agnew has his own problems, thats with taking kickbacks when he was county executive and governor and Vice President of the United States. These were largely off contracts here in the state of maryland where he got a percentage of that and it came in brown baerp bags pushed across table to him. And you read brown paper bags pushed across tame table to him and you read the depositions and the testimony against him on this and it is pretty damning. There were thoughts he should go to jail. We will go more into perhaps in the questionandanswer. It is a great story. There are heroes here, the attorney general of the stits, Elliot Richardson who prosecutes the case. U. S. Attorney in baltimore leaves no stone uncovered and they go after agnew even though the u. S. Attorney in baltimore, george bell, whose brother jay glen well bell was the republican senator in maryland. These are republican appointees who go after the republican Vice President and prosecute him all the way to the end of we will go into that maybe a little bit more in the questionandanswer. But it is fascinating. To say a few words about agnew post resignation because it is really interesting and it is the part in a nobody reads about. He is disbarred. He cant practice law anymore. He becomes an Early International lobbyist. He works for people like saddam hue san and nikolai chow chesky and the argentine military. He writes a novel, a steamy novel about a Vice President who has an affair thats reviewed in the harvard crimson as basically saying if he was as good a novelist as he was a Vice President then we are in a good place. Hes accused of antisemitism, perhaps rightfully so, because he talks about the press being controlled by israel. He writes an autobiography, go quietly or else, where he says that alexander hague, who was the chief of staff at the time actually wanted to have him killed. He he finally has his bust unveiled in the United States senate and portrait restored in annapolis but not until the late 1990s. Much after this period. He dies in obscurity in ocean city maryland in 1996. And he is basically ghosted out of American History. He is a trivia answer to questions on jeopardy. And then very ream there has been renewed interest in him. Many of you who listen to podcasts know that Rachel Maddow had a popular podcast rachel ma podcast that focused on his problems. There has been a series of opinions written by other people noting the connections between agnew and the current Republican Party. The antiafirmative action, the strong law and order, being against the media, being against intellectuals. Pat buchanan who ran for president twice is quoted as saying about trump, i was delighted when he got in. So that the connection here is real. And then i talk about this with jerry in the last part of the book. Both agnew and trump are opportuni opportunists. They use the public speech as a way to connect with audiences. They appeal to the silent majority and the white south. The idea of course many of you know agnew from his alliterat n alliteration, thats fake news. That is fake news. Theyre critical of fellow republicans who dont fall in line. Friendly toaaa authoritarian regimes. There was a sense that they were friendly, again the connection back to today. Its said the vice presidency isnt worth a bucket of warm spit. We argue that this unprepossessing marylander had a profound influence on politics and that his impact was wider and longer lasting than has been recognized. We believe he continue to be an important figure long after many of his predecessors and other successors in the Vice President sy is receded. He can lay claim to a legacy. With that, i think were open to taking your questions. [ applause ] if you have a question, wed like you to go to the microphone over here so we can get it recorded. When you started this book, was donald trump already the president . I didnt think so. So did you have to sort of shift your, you know why did you decide to write about it . Thanks for the question. So when we initially started thinking about agnew, donald trump was not president. We saw this much more in sort of biographical terms i think to explore his papers and try and talk about why he had been ghosted out of American History. Then when trump was elected in 2016, we had a phone call that was like, wow, this is something much bigger. This is something much more relevant than we previously had thought. This was a strain that when you look at sort of Republican Leaders over the last half century, goldwater to ag new to buchanan, sarah palin, to trump. The lineage was real. The red meat republican populist message all of a sudden we thought the project had far more salience to a much larger audience. When we first started the tea party was sort of that was kind of in the back of our mind, that this sort of tea party, antiobamacare, that spirit was out here, this looks familiar to us. Then trump happened, right . So we got an email from our coauthor, jerry, at 3 00 a. M. The night of the election that just said simply our book just got way more relevant. Thank you so much for a wonderful presentation. Articulate and wellreasoned. In comparing the trump era with the nixon agnew era, theres one huge difference that occurred to me and thats the labor union difference. Obviously, trump was able to mobilize many of the White Working Class men that would have been in labor unions in the 1960s and 70s, but not so much anymore. Do you address that at all in the book . If not, whats your thinking. Somewhat. But nixon this is where agnew was helpful again. Nixon was beginning to reach out to the White Working Class, the hard hats they called them. And was already starting to have some success peeling them away. And i think part of the success theyre starting to have was compressing these cultural issues. Much to the frustration of humphrey and then mcgovern. They were starting to get soft in terms of their support for the democrats. You can see in agnews papers that buchanan and the others they sense that that hard hat vote is there for the taking. A lot of these guys, they had been in vietnam. They had brothers or cousins who had been in vietnam. They look at the student protesters as a bunch of entitled punks. To someone with a finely tuned antenna like Richard Nixon, hes able to zero in on that. Again, it was often agnew who would reach out to hard hat voters. Theres a great piece in the new York Magazine where she goes to this working class bar and i think it was queens. She goes twice. And its 72 and 73 i think. Shes basically asking them why do you support nixon . Why do you support agnew. You know, law and order, tell it like it is. Weve had enough of this nonsense. That crack is starting to happen. That working class vote is starting to be peeled away. Well just repeat it. [ inaudible question ] so the question is it doesnt admit guilt, blames others. Did we talk about narcissism in the book. We talked so much directly about narcissism, but this was someone who cared very much about his appearance, which was clear all along. Wel wellcoifed and brill creamed and wore impeccable suits. I think it was in part because of his background, which chuck delves into. There was an insecurity. This again was someone who he originally started at johns hopkins, failed out. Went into the military, served honorably in world war ii. Came back and got his undergraduate and law degree at the university of baltimore and had a series of really obscure jobs. Worked in a Grocery Store in the 50s as an enforcer of sorts. Really obscure stuff working at an insurance agency. Was on the fringes of political society. Wanted to be on the fringe society. He was a democrat. And decides specifically to move out of Baltimore City and move to the suburbs and to change parties so he could be a big fish in a small pond. He could be the big deal in a Republican Party where there were no republicans and rise up the food chain quickly. Theres Great Stories about him reading readers digest, memorizing words so he can talk in big words, like the people hes dealing with. So theres this deep sense of insecurity i think intellectually that hes not quite up to snuff. So i think theres a sense that we got him and Political Science and historians that this was an overcompensation at some level for this lack of education and background. Hes working with kennedys and others who are ivy league players. So hes come from this very humble, very modest, very, you know, modest background. I think he played into that. Absolutely. And i also think it speaks to when i mention that, you know, the image we have of the family in the suburbs in the 1950s looks very stable. But it wasnt. And i think agnew just, you know, embodies that. Always worried it would these are depression area generation as well. Always worried it would fall apart or slip out of their hands. So there is this chip on their shoulder. In some ways he and nixon make a Wonderful Team of himalayan insecurities, right . Because nixon always felt like, you know, that he had a chip on his shoulder because he went to Duke University for law school and not harvard. Melan imagine how agnew must have felt . He went to night school. What i think is key here is that what we see with agnew now at the highest levels, hes the Vice President of the United States. Its not an ideological or policy legacy. Its a style of politics. It is a temperment that he brings to politics. Its always being on the offensive. Always being on the attack. Its never admitting a mistake, never backing down. It works for him. On some level it represents who it really was. I think he also was smart enough to realize this works and the people he was going to attack, people in studios in new york, and washington, College President s, ivy leaguers, that just played into what everybody else was thinking. In some ways politically its brilliant. The des moines speech that zack mentioned, you know, this was one of the things we try to point out is this peach where he attacks the networks everyone understands hes attacking the networks, but everyone gets hes attacking the press. And this was not just voicing frustration or complaint. This was orchestrated. This was planned. Right . You know, buchanan talk said about going to nixon ahead of time and saying lets go after the networks. All right . He says it will discredit their views for millions of viewers, right . Theyre doing this on purpose. What we would say today is theyre weaponizing this attack as opposed to just venting, and it works. The next day then the head of cbs, the head of nbc, i mean, theyre just falling all over themselves to accuse agnew of advocating for censorship, right . That nixon loves it. It worked, right . They were going into meltdown practically over agnews speech. And meanwhile, you know, his supporters loved it as well. Perhaps he wasnt governor long enough in the answer to my two questions. I remember he was considered the alternative. And i dont know what period of time he was governor. So i have two questions. One what can you say about what kind he was. Once that meeting took place in baltimore, was that a 90 degree uturn for him . Right. He wins the 66 race. He takes office in january 67. Hes pretty much, you know, august 68 hes on the campaign trail. Hes not governor very long, about a year and a half roughly. Track record is he has a Democratic Assembly to deal with. They pass an open housing law, so he did have against racist housing programs or techniques. So they pass gun legislation, right, they redo the state institution, so in some ways see what you think about this. In some ways hes a like a larry hopekin, if you want to govern in maryland youre going to have to govern as at least a moderate republican well, he wont get elected for one thing. So then the second part of your question, yeah, he had started mixing it up with his own constituents, the people who elected him. He had gone out to the Eastern Shore when h rep brown had been at cambridge. Said some pretty sharp things about black power leaders. He the students at bowie state had started to sit in at the Governors Office in late march, early april of 68, protesting the facilities were falling down. The students go to annapolis and they sit in in his office. They arrest like 250 of them or Something Like that. And hes got very stern words for them as well. Right . Hell close the campus if he has to until they start to shape up. That protest then gets pushed aside with kings assassination. The track record is, you know, yes, you can look at him as a moderate governor, but yeah, after april 68, hes made this pretty hard turn. When hes elected in 1966, you know, its a classic case study in american politics he runs in the democratic primary there are three primary candidates. One is a congressman from montgomery county, progressive, the others is an attorney general and the third is this segregationist also from montgomery county. Mahoney winds, the segregationist faces off against agnew in the general elections. There were democrats for agnew clubs. We interviewed a few of them. One came out proudly for agnew in 66 because they didnt want to vote for this segregationl e segregationalist candidate. He overturns the ban on interracial marriage. He works with the legislature who at the time the speaker of the house there wasnt a speaker of the house. Your dad was also in the legislature at the time i think as well. John hanson brisco. And the he ends up finding sort of Common Ground much the way i think hogan has tried to find Common Ground with democrats as well. Hes a supporter of rockefeller for president. He leaves him hanging at the last minute. He doesnt call agnew and he has a watch party with lots of journalists around. Rockefeller is about to announce whether hes going to run. Everybodys excited and then he says im not running. Agnew hadnt heard anything p. He was left at the altar. Theres an odd shift he has. Hes initially seen as a moderate, and then particularly on the questions of law and order and racial issues that buchanan sees, hes seen as someone who appeals to white southerners. We mentioned there really is not much done on agnew. There is a biography that came out while we were getting this book underway. Its fine. It does what biographies should do. What is out there, though, follows this he was a moderate and then he became a conservative. Sure. To a certain extent, but we didnt feel like that was the important story here. Its this temperment and rhetoric he brought. Whether he was the Baltimore County executive or Vice President. That was consistent. Thats what he had owned over the years that is more important than where he fits on the spectrum. The 60s and early 70s, as some of you remember were a tumultuous time politically. That spectrum, where to place him, is tricky we feel its not the most significant way of looking at him. One more question. [ inaudible question ] the question was was he selfdestructive . Why did he take the money . So he wasnt making much as a public servant. He didnt come from wealth. So the amount of money he was taking, its so little it boggles your mind. Were talking a couple of thousand dollars here and there. Its a couple thousand dollars. But he felt he needed it and he felt he needed it in order to participate in Washington Society and annapolis. He needed to have this money. His defense when cornered on this was, well, everybody else in maryland is doing the same thing. The answer is hes probably right. Everybody else in maryland was doing the same thing at the same time. His successor Dale Anderson went to jail. His successor as governor, all of you know, was eventually pardoned by Ronald Reagan but was also convicted. Everybody was kind of doing it at some level. That doesnt make it right. But he was playing in a faster lane. It was so sloppily done. When you read the indictment that Elliott Richardson and the department of justice puts forward about him. They had code names for drops. It was silly how small it was. And one has to wonder why particularly when he became Vice President , why he would have these bad men from baltimore who would come down to the Old Executive Office building, literally with manila papers filled with 20 bills and slide them across the stabtable to hi. It boggles the mind how small the stakes were and what he was playing with. You know, we talk about this in the book. When you play the great what if game and the this was someone who resigned in october 1973. Ten months before nixon resigns. If he had held on and not been not left office, would have been president in 1974. If he was president in 1974 theres no ford, theres probably no Ronald Reagan because he would have filled the conservative lane in 1976 and maybe beyond as a candidate. You have this sort of butterfly effect that coors where if he hadnt actually been pushed out at the time he was pushed out, American History would have looked entirely different. Of course, the characters who were involved in the end of his time in office, its amazing the kinds of things that are going on at exactly the same time. On october 9th, hes pushed out. October 6th the yom kippur war has started. The stuff thats compacted into a tenday period, agnew was like, it wasnt world war ii, but theres so much going on at the same time. It feels the same thing right now. Where theres so many things going on that youngz, wow, today its ukraine, but yesterday it was whatever. In many ways we may be living through a similar area to that time period in 1973 and 74 right now. Thank you all so much for being here. We really enjoyed it. Thank you all for coming this afternoon. We have a book sinning and a reception outside. Youre all welcome to join us. Thank you. Were featuring American History tv programs as a preview of whats available every weekend. Lectures in history. American artifacts. Real america. The civil war. Oral histories. The presidency. And special event coverage on our nations history. Enjoy American History tv now and every weekend on cspan 3. In this National History center congressional briefing we hear about the role of middle east oil since the end of world war ii. Especially about the importance of Saudi Arabian oil. This briefing is on the geo politics of middle east oil, historical perspectives on the current crisis. I want to justri