Agnew Unleashed

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Parent Power. One of Spiro Agnew's problems is simply candor. He is a blunt man with strong views, and he wants the world to know about them. Last week he told a Newsday columnist, Nick Thimmesch, that he had prevented his daughter Kim, 13, from marching and wearing a black armband on Moratorium Day. "She was unhappy about it for a day," Agnew said, "but she got over it. Parental-type power must be exercised."

But candor and the desire to let off steam—understandable in an energetic man with little else to do—are not the only explanation for Agnew's behavior. His demand that the Moratorium leaders repudiate Hanoi's endorsement of the movement, for instance, came immediately after a Nixon-Agnew meeting. While other Republican officials have spoken calmly and even sympathetically of the M-day dissenters, Agnew has been there to remind the Administration's harder-nosed constituents that Washington is not going soft. The precedent is almost too obvious. During the '50s, it was Vice President Nixon who played the blue-jowled meanie to Eisenhower's statesman. Lyndon Johnson occasionally used Hubert Humphrey in similar fashion. Now it is Agnew's turn to be pugilist, and he seems to be enjoying it.