Time for Spiro

Q. Have you heard what Mickey Mouse is wearing these days? A. A Spiro Agnew watch.

When Dr. Hale Dougherty of Anaheim, Calif., first heard the joke, he laughed. Then he stopped and thought. Then he laughed some more at his new notion: Why not create the real thing?

Commissioned by Dougherty, a graduate student at Caltech whipped up the face design (a cartoon of Agnew with the gloved minute hand forming the peace sign), and a Swiss company turned out a trial run of 2,000 watches. A neighbor's daughter contributed the company name by mispronouncing Dougherty, and Dirty Time, Inc., started ticking off the orders.

At $14.95 each, the first shipment sold out within a week. A second, larger order went just as quickly; in the two months since the watch hit the market, more than 5,000 have been snatched up, and there are orders on file for at least 50,000 more from major stores.

Dougherty, who claims to have had a "great response from staunch conservatives," will not reveal his politics. His cause, however, cannot have been hurt by the appearance last week of a Spiro Agnew watch on the wrist of Mrs. Ethel Kennedy. "I asked her what the watch did," reported Senator Ted Kennedy, "and she told me, 'You wind it up, and it criticizes your brother-in-law!' "

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