As presidents gained more control over running-mate selection, a transition that began with Franklin Roosevelt in 1940, the office began to transform. The personal selection of a running mate enabled presidents to view their next-in-line as a team member. This was first fully realized during the Eisenhower-Nixon years. As vice president, Nixon abandoned the Senate and took up a number of executive functions, serving on commissions, liaising with Congress, and acting as an administration surrogate at home and abroad.
It was this new executive vice presidency that Agnew was supposed to fill. But while Nixon was happy with the electoral work Agnew did—1968 was a squeaker of a race, and Nixon believed Agnew had helped him win it—when it came to governing, he was deeply disappointed in his vice president.
Take Agnew’s foreign travels, modeled after Nixon’s own extensive globetrotting as vice president. A 1971 trip to Africa turned into a debacle for Agnew. In an Oval Office conversation with Nixon, John Ehrlichman, and H.R. Haldeman, in which the three discussed how to dump Agnew from the 1972 ticket, the Africa trip loomed large. Agnew’s constant golfing was a particular point of contention. “You’ve got to make it appear that the trip’s for work. Not over there on a goddamn vacation,” Nixon fumed.
He compared Agnew’s trip with his own travels as vice president: “Jesus Christ, you know, when I went on these trips with my wife, we worked our butts off, and it made an impression … [Agnew] had far more of substance than I had. But our trips really had a better effect, because, by God, we were out there talking to the people, visiting hospitals, and going through plants.”
Nixon was so frustrated with Agnew’s mishandling of the Africa trip’s optics that he gave his perpetual enemy, the press, a pass. In a conversation with Secretary of State Bill Rogers, Nixon noted how good the press coverage of his own travels as vice president had been. “I never had any friends in the press, you know,” said Nixon. “… But on my trips, my God, I got a good press. It’s almost impossible not to get a good press on a trip, mainly because of this: The press sort of is with you because, you know, you’re America over there, and they want you to do well.”