Nany Evans oral history.indd - Washington Secretary of State

Dan said, “Would you like to come over to the Mansion and say hello?” He said, “Sure.”
So I told the boys that they were coming over and could they clean themselves up a little
bit and come and meet the Vice President of the United States. Bruce was about 4 years
old. So Danny and Mark did. They cleaned up. And they came down to meet Agnew. And
whoever was there took pictures, and they said hello. Well, Bruce was not going to come
down, and I thought, “Some
day you will want to say you
met the vice president.” So I
went upstairs and said, “Now
Bruce…” And he had on this
little short suit and knee socks,
blazer jacket, all dressed up.
Bruce is an easy-going child,
the third child. He was always
Bruce balks at shaking hands with the vice-president. UPI, Washington State Archives
a delight to bring out; a
wonderful sense of humor —
he has it to this day. But he just did not want to do this. I sort of insisted. And there’s this
picture of this little child. Ted Agnew is leaning over and shaking hands and Bruce has these
tears just rolling down his face. He’s crying. That picture was in the papers all over the
country the next day.
Hughes: I think the kid was prescient. He probably knew that Spiro Agnew was a problem.
Hughes: So, how about the Nixons?
Evans: We saw a lot of the Nixons over the years.
Hughes: Tell me about that. What was that like? All the things that you hear about
Richard Millhous Nixon, the secret man. Did you get any glimpses into that?
Evans: I think so.
Hughes: Tell us about that.
Evans: Well, we were just having this conversation recently with somebody here who
worked with him. He was just a loner type of a person. He was very serious. Not easy with
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