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Higher Office(s) Served: Vice President

Military Service: Army

War(s) Served:  World War II; Korean War

Honors/Awards:  Bronze Star

SPIRO T. AGNEW was born in Baltimore, Maryland on November 9, 1918 to Greek immigrants. He attended Baltimore City public schools. In 1941 Agnew was drafted by the United States Army. He was commissioned an officer, served in France during World War II, and received the Bronze Star. Agnew received a law degree from the University of Baltimore in 1947, and ten years later entered local politics when he was appointed a member of the Baltimore County Board of Appeals. In 1962 he was elected Baltimore County Executive. Four years later, in 1966, he ran as a moderate Republican and was elected the 55th governor of Maryland. Governor Agnew introduced a graduated income tax and an effective anti-pollution law and he served on the National Governors Association's Executive Committee (1967-1968), and was vice chairman of the Association's Committee on State-Urban Relations (1967-68). In 1968, Richard M. Nixon selected Agnew to be his vice presidential running mate. Agnew quickly developed a reputation for strong polemical speeches critical of the antiwar movement, the media, and liberals. On October 10, 1973, after pleading "no contest" to a charge of income tax evasion connected with kickbacks he received during his tenure as Maryland's governor, Agnew resigned as Vice President--only the second vice president ever to resign and the first to leave office because of legal problems. Agnew was disbarred in 1974. After his resignation Agnew  left politics and became a businessman representing a variety of international clients, splitting his time between California and Maryland. Spiro Theodore Agnew died in Maryland on September 17, 1996, and was buried at Dulaney Valley Memorial Gardens.

Sources:

Biographical Directory of the U.S. Congress

Maryland State Archives

Eisenberg, Gerson G. Marylanders Who Served the Nation. Annapolis, MD: Maryland State Archives, 1992.

White, Frank F., Jr. The Governors of Maryland, 1777-1972. Annapolis, MD: Hall of Records Commission, 1970.

Spiro T. Agnew papers (Archives UM: Encoded Archival Description at the University of Maryland)