Rare Book Monthly
Book Catalogue Reviews - January - 2006 Issue
Famed Manuscripts and Autographs from The Raab Collection
Harry Truman's paycheck for August 1945.
He was one of the fastest rising politicians in American history, a unifying reform governor who became a confrontational and controversial vice-president, and ultimately one of the nation's most disgraced politicians. Of course, we could be talking about no one other than Spiro Agnew, disgraced vice-president of the most disgraced president ever, Richard Nixon. Agnew was an obscure Baltimore County Executive in 1966 when he decided to run for governor of Maryland. Due to a split in the dominant Democratic Party, he squeezed through for the upset victory. Two years later, despite cries of "Spiro who?" Nixon selected him as his running mate. However, the moderate Agnew quickly settled into the role of Nixon's hatchet man, or "Nixon's Nixon" as they used to say. After years of harsh rhetoric, there was little sympathy for Agnew on the other side of the aisle when reports emerged that he had accepted bribes as Governor. For his part, Agnew believed Nixon was behind the reports, an attempt to deflect attention from the scandals now surrounding the President. Unfortunately for Agnew, the case against him was too strong. He pleaded no contest to avoid trial and resigned from the vice-presidency. Were it not for his own scandals, Agnew would have become president when the Watergate scandal later forced Nixon from office too.
Item 43 is a collection of correspondence from Agnew to Diane Bouyoucas, a relative of the priest who performed the marriage of Agnew's son. The correspondence begins in May of 1973, before news of the scandal broke, and continues until August 1996, a month before he died. After his resignation, Agnew wrote, "I can only reaffirm my innocence to you and hope...that you will try to understand that I believe the actions I have taken are in the best interest of the nation." In the following years, messages are more personal in nature. To Miss Bouyoucas marrying a non-Greek, Agnew writes, "My son married a Greek girl. They are now divorced. It doesn't always work as well as the old folks claim." In 1992 he laments all of the "back-biting" in politics and "vacuous photo opportunities." In his final letter a month before he died, Agnew notes, "...at my age there are a lot of people and places that escape me." He also apologizes for not being able to respond to every letter but, "I am so terribly busy and my correspondence load is heavy for a one person office." The final piece in the collection is a note of thanks from Agnew's family for Miss Bouyoucas' condolences when he passed away on September 17, 1996. $2,500.
Among the other famed persons represented in this catalogue are Benjamin Franklin, George Washington, Abraham Lincoln, John and John Quincy Adams, Thomas Jefferson, King George IV, Robert E. Lee, U.S. Grant, Jefferson Davis, Andrew Johnson, Walt Whitman, John D. Rockefeller, Woodrow Wilson, Dwight Eisenhower, Albert Einstein, Bill Clinton, and George Clinton (the New York Governor, not the funk musician).
The Raab Collection is located online at www.raabcollection.com, phone number 800-977-8333.
