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In six months, Marvin Mandel will be 90 years old. It would be hard to find anyone who has witnessed more Maryland political history. Over his 60-year career, Mandel rose from Election Day car driver to governor.

Like his parents, Marvin Mandel was born in East Baltimore. His dad was a cloth cutter, a garment worker who, using a pattern, cut through multiple layers of fabric so they could be stitched into suits. His mom, during World War II, worked on a military aircraft assembly line. Young Marvin was a good enough baseball pitcher to earn scouting notice and a free ride to the University of Maryland. But after blowing out his arm, he turned to law school. During World War II he served as an instructor and afterward became a struggling young lawyer with little interest in politics.

Then, a city councilman asked Mandel to help drive voters to the polls on Election Day. In 1950, the same councilman asked Mandel to run for the Democratic Central Committee. When Mandel asked what it was, the councilman assured him, "Don't worry, you won't have to do anything."

But two years later, when a state delegate resigned, the three-man Democratic Central Committee deadlocked on naming a successor. Finally, they compromised by choosing Mandel, and that's how Marvin Mandel got into politics.

Over the next dozen years, thanks to some agile maneuvering and some dumb luck, Mandel rose to chairman of the city delegation, chairman of the Ways and Means Committee and finally, speaker of the House of Delegates. In 1969 he became governor.

Now, looking back, Mandel recalls his rise to power and tells some good backroom stories about politics in his day. Here's Mandel, in his own words, as he nears 90.

Q: When Spiro Agnew was governor and you were speaker, how did you get along?

"We had a good working relationship. He would want certain things and I'd tell him what was possible and then we'd settle on it.

"He had no experience at all in government and I helped him. But this is how I found out how much he didn't know. After he was elected, but before he was sworn in, he said to me, ‘I'm going to make so-and-so my nominee for state treasurer. Do you think I'll have any problem getting him confirmed?'

"I looked at him and said, ‘Governor, you don't have anything to do with it. The state treasurer is elected by the legislature.' Agnew said, ‘Nobody told me that.' And then Agnew said, ‘I've already promised it.' I said, ‘Well, I'm sorry but the legislature is overwhelmingly Democratic and they're not going to elect a Republican.' He was very disappointed."

Q: Tell me how Agnew became vice president in 1968 and how you become governor.

"I got a call from a friend on the Republican National Committee who said, ‘Agnew's going to be nominated for vice president,' and I said ‘Of what?' And he said ‘Of the United States!' I said, ‘You gotta be kidding me!'

"After the (The Rev. Martin Luther King assassination) riots in Baltimore, Agnew had a meeting where he laid out all the black leaders.

"Nixon had a deal with (U.S. Senator) Strom Thurmond to get the southern votes, that Thurmond could veto — not name, but veto — the vice president candidate and (Thurmond) turned down about three different people. So (Republican Maryland State Senator) Louise Gore went to Nixon and said, ‘What about Agnew?' and Nixon said, ‘Who's Agnew?'

"So Gore took Agnew by the hand to Nixon and said, ‘I've already talked to Strom and he says Agnew's alright with him.' And Nixon said, ‘Well, if he's alright with Thurmond, he's alright with me.'

[Note: In 1968, the lieutenant governor position was not yet created, so if Gov. Agnew became vice president, the General Assembly, which elected Agnew's successor, was certain to make Mandel governor.]

"So now I'm thinking I'm the chair of the Maryland Democratic Party and I'm also the speaker of the House of Delegates. If we don't carry the Democratic candidate (Hubert Humphrey) they'll think I deliberately lost the election so I could become governor!"

"So I went to (political boss) Irv Kovens and said, ‘We're in tough straits, we have to win this election.' So we put on a hell of a campaign and we carried Maryland for Humphrey. And Nixon always said to Agnew, ‘You couldn't even carry your own state.'

A tip from Gov. Tawes:

"Here's the advice I got from Gov. Millard Tawes at my inauguration as we were walking up the State House steps. Gov. Tawes said, ‘I want to tell you something.' I said, ‘I appreciate that, governor.' And he said, "From now on, when you go goose hunting, before you go into the blind make sure they check it first so there's no [Illegal bait] corn lying around. I have the game warden check it out every time I go hunting because somebody might be trying to get you in trouble.'

Next week: Mandel looks back, Part II.

Blair Lee is CEO of the Lee Development Group in Silver Spring and a regular commentator for WBAL radio. His column appears Fridays in The Gazette. His e-mail address is blair@leedg.com.