Spiro Agnew Between Jobs

He stood before the bench, fingering some notes that he had written on an envelope, still a tall, erect, impeccably tailored figure. But his face was gaunt, and the familiar baritone, once so sternly confident and self-righteous, was surprisingly soft. Last week Spiro Agnew appeared in a hushed and packed Annapolis, Md., courtroom to fight what one of his attorneys called "professional decapitation''--disbarment.

"Do not strip me of my means of livelihood," pleaded Lawyer Agnew to the panel of three judges, his voice nearly breaking. "Do not impose upon me the ultimate sanction. I ask you instead to impose a reasonable period of suspension ... so that at some later day I might resume my practice and attempt to bring credit upon my state and upon my profession."

The Maryland State Bar Association had voted without objection to seek Agnew's disbarment after his resignation as Vice President and his decision not to contest the Government's charges of evading federal income taxes. Attorneys for the association pointed out last week that the charge that Agnew did not deny was a felony involving "moral turpitude." Agnew should be disbarred, argued Alfred L. Scanlan, an association lawyer, "out of respect for the courts, out of respect for the legal profession, out of need to protect the public and for the administration of justice."

Friend in Need. Next week the judges are expected to make their recommendations on Agnew's fate to the Maryland Court of Appeals, which will have the final say. Agnew has good reason to sweat out the verdict: he needs money desperately. His legal expenses so far amount to at least $200,000--and they will rise much higher if, as anticipated, the Internal Revenue Service presses him for the payment of back taxes. An "Agnew Defense Fund," started by W. Clement Stone, the Chicago millionaire, so far has collected only about $40,000.

To get by, Agnew will need more help than that from his friends. What friends? "Well," says one former aide, "there's Frank Sinatra." Agnew and Sinatra dined with two other people at Chicago's classy, brassy Pump Room a few weeks back (total tab: $150), and the aging crooner is asking members of his crowd to contribute to the cause. Sinatra is also acting as agent for the book that Agnew plans to write some day, and is said to be asking $500,000. So far, no takers.

While Agnew's future remains in doubt, he is preoccupied with his past.

Most days he leaves his heavily mortgaged $190,000 home in the Maryland suburbs and is driven in a Government-owned Lincoln by a Secret Service agent to a tan town house across Pennsylvania Avenue from the White House. There, with a staff of eight, he sorts the 400 cartons of his papers that cram the three floors of the narrow building and overflow into another house next door.

Agnew also writes hundreds of letters --many in longhand--to supporters who have deluged him with 37,000 pieces of mail since his world collapsed.

While Agnew works, his Government limousine is at his beck, and Secret Service agents keep guard downstairs, eying visitors through bulletproof one-way glass. The fact that the former Vice President has been receiving such perquisites so angered Democratic Congressman John E. Moss that he asked the General Accounting Office to investigate. Last week Comptroller General Elmer Staats wrote Moss that in just under two months the Government had already spent $89,132 on Agnew's staff, $2,075 for the maintenance of the town houses, $877 for office supplies and $905 to move the cartons from his old office.

In addition, the cost of providing Secret Service protection for Agnew--a dozen agents accompanied him to Annapolis, and they keep watch in a parked car outside his house--is estimated at $80,000 so far. Staats told Moss: "We know of no specific provision of law authorizing the Secret Service to so protect a Vice President after he leaves office." President Nixon had ordered the Secret Service coverage for Agnew.

The White House refused to say how long Agnew would continue to enjoy the style of living to which he has become accustomed. But Nixon's aides were talking privately of extending the coverage to six months from his resignation on Oct. 10--the same period that Hubert Humphrey was given similar privileges by Richard Nixon after losing the 1968 election.

Time has not lessened Agnew's bitterness toward the press or the Justice Department or the business cronies who squealed; he has privately complimented one businessman pal for not "breaking."

One Agnew associate reports that "he thinks the leaks [to the press] were unconscionable. He thinks the prosecution was prejudiced."

This associate also recalls hearing Agnew's comment about Nixon's fight to avoid surrendering the Watergate tapes. Said Agnew: "He's doing anything that he can do to postpone the inevitable as long as possible."

This file is automatically generated by a robot program, so reader's discretion is required.