At a NATO base in Germany, Agnew looked out at the runway and, in his own words, “nearly wet my pants.” The F-84F fighter planes on alert, each carrying a fully assembled Mark 7 bomb, were being guarded by a single American soldier. Agnew walked over and asked the young enlisted man, who carried an old-fashioned, bolt-action rifle, what he’d do if somebody jumped into one of the planes and tried to take off. Would he shoot at the pilot—or the bomb? The soldier had never been told what to do. The wings of the fighters were decorated with the Iron Cross, a symbol that powerfully evoked two world
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