"MEET THE PRESS" NBC-TV 865

need to do is to give some incentive to stay in the areas and to see
that industry moves into those areas to disseminate this impaction of
population.

Mr. Spivak: Governor Agnew, when you were trying to get Gov-
ernor Nelson Rockefeller to become a. candidate for the Republican
nomination, you were reported as saying, "Nixon does not make me
a bit uncomfortable, but I just don't think he has quite the image
to cut across those party lines and infect with enthusiasm that Nelson
has. "

Has anything led you to change your position on that?

Governor Agnew: Yes, very definitely. I have been changed by
what I sense to be a reaction in the country since the riots that fol-
lowed the King assassination. I think at that point there was a tre-
mendous concern manifest that the people of this country are really
worried about whether we, the leadership, are going to be able to
divorce ourselves from the technological expertise we assume we have
acquired since we have been in government and look to the very ele-
ments of Constitutional safeguard that seem to be threatened at this
moment. And I think in looking at those elements the people have
turned to a person who has not been afraid to speak out in a very
forthright fashion in a patriotic manner. I think Mr. Nixon has
done this, and I think by doing it he has attracted a tremendous
amount of support that he didn't have before.

Mr. Spivak: Are you going to make your judgment on what you
think the sentiment of the country is, what you think the sentiment
of the State is, or are you going to exercise some of your own in-
dependent judgment and give leadership to the people of your State
and maybe the people of the country in making your decision?

Governor Agnew: I think there is always a very difficult decision
to make at the point where you decide to rely upon your own initia-
tive and when that initiative becomes affected by this great system of
government we have which, after all, is a representative government.

I am affected. I am not relying on these people to be affected. I
personally am affected with these same fears that are sweeping the
country. It concerns me when I read in the paper that a leader who
is constantly before the media, such as Mr. Abernathy, is advocating
turning a city upside down; it concerns me when I hear a man like
Professor Marcuse explain that violence is necessary before any change
can take place. I think these are essentials that I have an obligation