After 22 Years, Agnew Returns for Senate Honor

Spiro T. Agnew came to the U.S. Senate on Wednesday after a 22-year absence to be honored with a statue like those depicting all the other former vice presidents.

Addressing what he called the people opposed to the honor, Agnew, 76, said the bust “is not so much about me, but with the institution of the vice presidency.” He was elected and reelected, he said, and “that fact is a fact of American history.”

The statue, which shows Agnew as he looked when he served as Richard Nixon’s vice president, stands beside a main door to the Senate chamber.

The former vice president has rarely been seen in Washington since his bitter 1973 resignation in disgrace. He had pleaded no contest to a charge of income tax evasion. He had served as vice president since 1969; Nixon resigned 10 months later in another scandal, Watergate.

In a 1980 book, “Go Quietly or Else,” Agnew proclaimed himself innocent of the allegations against him and innocent of allegations of bribery and extortion filed with a federal court as part of his plea- bargaining agreement.