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Zorba the Veep. Though Agnew's father was born in the Peloponnesian village of Gargalianoi, he took on most of the ways of the new country after he moved to the U.S. in 1897. He changed the family name from Anagnostopoulos to Agnew, and married a Virginian with the un-Hellenic name of Akers. His son went further, converting from Greek Orthodoxy to Episcopalianism. To his embarrassment, Agnew cannot speak any Greek—though that will probably not lose him many of the votes of an estimated 600,000 fellow Greek Americans. Some people indeed were already referring to him last week as "Zorba the Veep."
His tastes tend toward the homey. He follows the Baltimore Colts and Orioles faithfully—some claim that his constant squint comes from too much TV watching—plays golf, and spends as much time as possible with his family. The Agnews have four children: Pamela, 25, a social worker in Baltimore; James Rand, 22, a Navy Seabee in Viet Nam; Susan, 20, a secretary in Baltimore; and Elinor Kimberly, 12, who is in the eighth grade. Elinor Agnew, 47, who is called Judy, is known as a thrifty housewife. Since discovering a cache of empty peanut-butter jars in the kitchen of the executive mansion, she has used them as cocktail glasses.
Until 1962, Agnew had held no elective office—other than the presidency of the P.T.A.—and had never proceeded much further in politics than the Baltimore County zoning board. He is therefore something of an unknown quantity even in Maryland. "Agnew," says Roy Innis, national director of the Congress of Racial Equality, "is the kind of guy who can't be described in terms of good or bad. He is sort of a nonentity." Humorless and cautious, often inflexible, yet straightforward and unaffected at the same time, he has something of the air of a high school math teacher. At press conferences in Annapolis, he would usually not speak until he had absolute silence. In many respects he is the archetypical man of the suburbs, the first of the new breed of suburban politicians to come so close to high office. Because of his seeming turnabout on Rockefeller and civil rights, some suspect that he is opportunistic. Agnew insists he has stayed in the same place, but that attitudes and conditions have changed. After the April riots, he says, "I saw this country do a flop-over."
While voicing optimism about November, Agnew is totally realistic about the task ahead of him. "I'm starting at the bottom of the ladder," he said, "I've got a big job to do in three months to become interesting and viable to people who don't know me . . . I am confident that I can do what has to be done in this campaign and, hopefully, in the Administration to follow."