Agnew, Spiro T

Agnew, Spiro T(heodore)

(born Nov. 9, 1918, Baltimore, Md., U.S.—died Sept. 17, 1996, Berlin, Md.) U.S. politician, the only vice president forced to resign. He studied law at the University of Baltimore and began a law practice in a Baltimore suburb in 1947. He was elected Baltimore county executive in 1962 and then governor of Maryland in 1967. In 1968 and 1972 he was elected vice president on the Republican ticket headed by Richard Nixon. His sometimes colourful denunciations of Vietnam War protesters and other opponents of the Nixon administration brought him much attention in the news media. Investigated for extortion, bribery, and income-tax violations allegedly committed during his governorship, he resigned the vice presidency in 1973 and pleaded no contest to a single income-tax charge. He was fined $10,000 and sentenced to three years of unsupervised probation. Disbarred in 1974, he became a consultant to foreign businesses.