All language subtitles for s37e01 The American Vice President

♪ ♪

NARRATOR:
In the nation's capital

during the middle decades
of the 20th century,

a joke was making the rounds

about a luckless mother
who had two grown sons,

neither of whom
was ever heard from again.

One was lost at sea.

The other became vice president.

♪ ♪

It's this weird situation
with the vice presidency,

where you're the running mate,

you're the other face on
the political campaign button,

but unless the president
of the United States

wants to give you something
to do,

you can basically sit around
twiddling your thumbs.

It's historically seen
as a political death sentence.

RACHEL MADDOW (chuckling):
Nobody in the history of
America,

nobody in the history
of the world,

has ever looked at themselves
in the mirror and said,

"If I do everything right,
someday I'll be vice president."

NARRATOR:
And yet

the vice president has been key
to the continuity of government

since the early years
of the republic.

And were a bookie
to calculate the odds

of a vice president
succeeding to the presidency,

rather than being elected to it,

they would shake out
at roughly one in five.

JARED COHEN:
Eight times in history,

a U.S. president has died
in office.

One time in history,
a president has resigned.

There were at least
19 times in history

where the president
of the United States

was almost assassinated,

almost died of illness,
and almost died due to accident.

So it's sort of shocking to me
that, despite that history,

we don't pay more attention to
the seriousness of the office.

♪ ♪

NARRATOR:
When the clock started

on that infamous Friday,
the 22nd of November 1963,

no one could see what was coming

or the way the events of that
morning would focus attention

on the American vice presidency.

But in the recollection
of Lady Bird Johnson,

the vice president's wife, it
began with the clouds parting.

LADY BIRD JOHNSON:
After a drizzle in the morning,

the sun came out
bright and beautiful.

We were going into Dallas.

REPORTER:
The president's plane
now touching down,

and the president and
Mrs. Kennedy have arrived

at Dallas Love Field.

(crowd cheering)

Vice President and Mrs. Johnson

are stepping to the foot
of the ladder.

A reception line has formed,

and there is Mrs. Kennedy.

The first lady is stepping
from the plane.

LADY BIRD JOHNSON:
In the lead car, President
and Mrs. Kennedy.

And then a Secret Service car
full of men.

And then our car.

REPORTER:
There are hardly any clouds
in the northern skies,

and the president
will be riding in the open.

LADY BIRD JOHNSON:
The streets were lined
with people,

lots and lots of children,
all smiling.

We were rounding a curve,

going down a hill.

Suddenly, there was
a sharp,

loud report.

A shot.

And then two more.

♪ ♪

I heard over the radio system,

"Let's get out of here."

(sirens blaring)

And our Secret Service man
who was with us

vaulted over the front seat

on top of Lyndon,
threw him to the floor,

and said, "Get down."

♪ ♪

NARRATOR:
Pinned down in the back seat,

Vice President Lyndon Johnson
had no visual

of what was happening,

only the sensation
of picking up speed.

REPORTER:
It appears as though something
has happened

in the motorcade group.

Stand by just a moment, please.

There has been a shooting,
I repeat, a shooting

in the motorcade
in the downtown area.

Parkland Hospital
has been advised

to stand by
for a severe gunshot wound.

REPORTER 2:
And the first
unconfirmed reports say

the president was hit
in the head.

REPORTER 3:
A priest has been ordered;

emergency supplies of blood

also being rushed
to the hospital.

♪ ♪

NARRATOR:
As of that grim morning,

Johnson had been vice president
of the United States

for two years,
ten months, and two days,

and by his own account, he had
"detested every minute of it."

President Johnson
was what he'd had in mind--

an ambition first announced
at 17 or so,

then doggedly pursued straight
into the halls of Congress.

He'd been elected
Senate minority leader at 46

and majority leader
the following year,

the youngest man ever

to hold that post.

By 1960, he wielded
so much power in Washington

that he'd waited
until the very last minute

to declare his candidacy
for president,

expecting to best the
primary favorite, John Kennedy,

in the backrooms at the
Democratic National Convention.

(crowd cheering)

But that had proved
a serious miscalculation.

REPORTER:
And on the balloting,
it's a Kennedy landslide.

MAN:
Mr. Chairman, Wyoming's vote

will make a majority
for Senator Kennedy.

(crowd cheering)

NARRATOR:
With no shot at
the top of the ticket,

Johnson had settled
for running mate,

persuaded the Democrats

could not win the election
without him.

♪ ♪

The vice presidency was
for Johnson,

as for so many who had held
the office before him,

a consolation prize
without consolation.

Denied an office
in the West Wing

and a seat on Air Force One,

disdained by Kennedy's
urbane inner circle,

who snidely referred to the
Texas-born VP and his wife

as "Uncle Cornpone and
his Little Lamb Chop,"

Johnson had become,
as one observer put it,

"a man without a purpose;

a great horse
in a very small corral."

Are you familiar with the name
Lyndon Johnson?

No.
Pardon me?

No.
No?

No.

No, sir.
No?

He's not president.

JAMES HITE:
John Kennedy knew

Johnson was a restless person,

and he assigned him

to some, you know,

sort of mediocre commissions

and different things, you know,

just to kind of keep him busy.

And he also turned Johnson
into a roving diplomat,

traveling around the world
and meeting with world leaders.

I think Kennedy's attitude

was that he didn't really need
the vice president nearby.

He didn't need
the vice president involved

in the day-to-day business
of the administration.

NARRATOR:
If Johnson gamely
played his part,

he did so knowing
it was only a show.

"The vice presidency

is filled
with trips around the world,

"chauffeurs, men saluting,
people clapping,

chairmanships of councils,"
he once said.

"But in the end, it is nothing."

Standing with his wife now,
though,

in a close, curtained-off room
at Dallas's Parkland Hospital,

his office suddenly
took on a new cast.

LADY BIRD JOHNSON:
I think it was from
Kenny O'Donnell

that I first heard the words,
"The president is dead."

COHEN:
I think LBJ is contemplating
and trying to make sense

of a lot of things
that are happening very fast.

He's about to get the job

that he's always wanted,

but this isn't how he wants it.

From Dallas, Texas,
the flash apparently official:

President Kennedy died at

1:00 p.m. Central Standard Time,

2:00 Eastern Standard Time,

some 38 minutes ago.

Vice President, either
soon-to-be or already President

of the United States
Lyndon Johnson

was at
the Parkland Hospital in Dallas

at the time or near the time
of the official announcement

of the death of the
35th president of this country,

John F. Kennedy.

The Secret Service
at this moment,

or as of a few moments ago,

was saying that
Mr. Johnson's whereabouts

would not be revealed
for security reasons.

SARAH T. HUGHES:
...I do solemnly swear...

LYNDON JOHNSON:
...I do solemnly swear...

HUGHES:
...that I will
faithfully execute...

LYNDON JOHNSON:
...that I will faithfully
execute...

NARRATOR:
"I knew it was imperative
that I grasp the reins of power

and do so without delay,"
Johnson remembered.

"The nation was in a state
of shock and grief.

"The entire world was watching
us through a magnifying glass.

I had to prove myself."

I will do my best.

That is all I can do.

I ask for your help and God's.

♪ ♪

NARRATOR:
It was a paradox
of the vice presidency

that the first to hold
the office, John Adams,

had been quick to grasp.

As he had put it:
"I am the vice president.

"In this, I am nothing.

But I may be everything."

Good evening.

History has been trying
to tell us something

about the vice presidency.

The office was added
as an afterthought

to the Constitution,

which as a document
has been called

the most wonderful work
ever struck off

by the brain and purpose of man.

But by the time
the founding fathers

got around
to the vice presidency,

they were weary and impatient.

And the flaws of their haste
have haunted us ever since.

NARRATOR:
The U.S. Constitution assigned
precisely two responsibilities

to the vice president,
a job description so slight

that a member
of the first Congress

suggested the position be
compensated on a per diem basis.

KATE ANDERSEN BROWER:
The vice president really
has two roles:

to be there in case something

happens to the president,

to stand in for him,

take his place,

or, uh, cast a tie-breaking vote
in the Senate.

The founding fathers
really didn't give

the vice presidency
much thought.

COHEN:
They thought even less
about succession.

I think that's fascinating,

because people didn't live
that long back then.

The Constitution said, "In case
of the removal of the president

"or his death,
resignation, or inability

"to discharge the duties
of said office,

the same shall devolve
on the vice president."

They left it very vague
what "devolve" meant

and what "same" meant,
what they meant by

"inability
to discharge the duties."

They didn't leave
much of a blueprint.

NARRATOR:
Under the framers'
original scheme of election,

the vice president was to be
the literal runner-up,

the winner of the second-most
electoral votes for president.

But the rise
of political parties

and the prospect of ideological
opponents serving in tandem

made that approach untenable,

and in 1804 helped
to spur the 12th Amendment.

HITE:
What the 12th Amendment did is

it created a method whereby

electors were to cast
separate votes for president

and separate votes
for vice president.

Under the original method,
you had a field of candidates

who were generally
of presidential caliber.

You, you were taking a shot,

and there was a good chance
that you could end up president.

After the 12th Amendment,

because the vice presidency
lacked any substantive powers,

there began to be a decline

in the number of and
the quality of candidates

who would stand
for vice president.

You would be hard-pressed
to find very many Americans

who could name vice presidents
from the 19th century.

RAMESH PONNURU: Vice presidents
were really chosen

by political
party organizations.

Many times, the president
was chosen

because he was part
of the winning faction,

and the minority faction was
given the vice presidency often

as a way of keeping
the party together.

That tradition continued

even after it became much more

of a presidentially selected
position,

because those presidential
candidates themselves

had an interest
in some kind of balance.

NARRATOR:
During the first half-century
of the new republic,

no president died in office,

and the succession clause
went untested.

Then, in 1841,
the ninth commander-in-chief,

William Henry Harrison,
succumbed to pneumonia

barely a month
after his inauguration,

and Vice President John Tyler
stepped into the breach,

boldly declaring himself
president of the United States.

JOEL K. GOLDSTEIN:
His claim was controversial,

because many people
read the Constitution,

which was ambiguous, to say
that if the president died,

the vice president
simply acted as president,

that he simply exercised
the powers and duties

of the presidency
while remaining vice president.

But Tyler insisted
that he was president,

refused to be dealt with
on any other basis.

COHEN:
He was subsequently referred to

as "His Accidency,"
"The Great Usurper"...

You know, the press
had a field day with it.

He would often get mail

addressed to "John Tyler,"

comma, "acting president
of the United States."

And he had a rule of thumb

that he would return those
unopened

regardless
of who they came from.

♪ ♪

The Tyler Precedent
took care of what happens

when the president dies
in office,

albeit not formalized
by the Constitution.

Seven subsequent presidents

became
president of the United States

because of that precedent:

Millard Fillmore,

Andrew Johnson,

Chester Arthur,

Theodore Roosevelt,

Calvin Coolidge,

Harry Truman,

and Lyndon Johnson.

NARRATOR:
The vice presidency, meanwhile,

would remain vacant in each case
for the duration of the term,

there being
no constitutional mechanism

for filling such a vacancy.

Twice between 1842 and 1963,

Congress revised
constitutional provisions

that extended
the line of succession

beyond the vice presidency.

But the man first in that line,
the vice president,

remained a kind of appendage,

his prerogatives shrouded
in mystery

so long as
the president was alive.

In 1881, after President
James Garfield was struck

by a would-be assassin's bullet,

he clung to life
for an agonizing 88 days,

while Vice President
Chester A. Arthur

hovered on the sidelines,

unsure of his authority
to step in.

GOLDSTEIN:
There was a concern

that if anyone acted

to transfer power to Vice
President Arthur,

that it would displace Garfield
from the presidency

because Arthur, like Tyler,
would become president.

And since the Constitution
only envisions one president,

that would mean
that Garfield would be ousted.

So this became sort of a cloud

that hung over, um,
the country, really,

whenever there was
a presidential inability.

NARRATOR:
When Woodrow Wilson
suffered a stroke in 1919,

his VP, Thomas Marshall,

likewise refused
to appear the usurper,

and stood aside as
Wilson's wife and his secretary

kept the president's condition
a secret

for more than six months.

And then there was
Richard Nixon,

vice president
to Dwight D. Eisenhower,

who spent much of his presidency
in and out of the hospital.

MADDOW:
So in 1955,

General Eisenhower is very,
very popular as a president,

but he has
a massive heart attack,

which requires
a very long convalescence.

Then in 1956, as he is standing
for reelection,

he has emergency surgery,

which also requires
a very long convalescence.

And it opens up discussion

around this black box, which was
who was running the presidency

while Ike was convalescing

after his multiple
serious health problems.

COHEN:
There was no provision
in the Constitution

for dealing with a situation
where the president is disabled.

There's actually
no formal mechanism

for discharging the duties
of the president

to an acting president,
even the vice president.

There was no clarity around

who's in charge.

♪ ♪

GOLDSTEIN:
People increasingly looked
to the president

to address both domestic
and international problems

and to handle an increasingly
complicated global situation

in a nuclear age.

I expect to be back
at my accustomed duties,

although they say
I must ease my way into 'em,

and not bulldoze my way
into 'em.

GOLDSTEIN:
It made the president
more powerful, more significant.

And that meant
that the vice president

became more significant.

And so ultimately,
the vice presidency

gets pulled from Capitol Hill,

where the vice presidents
had presided over the Senate

and done really little else,

down Pennsylvania Avenue
to the executive branch.

President Eisenhower
was cognizant

and very transparent, really,
that he had health issues.

He had concerns about the lack
of clarity in the Constitution

in terms of inability,

or presidents
being incapacitated

for some period of time.

And so he gave himself
the authority

to decide
when an inability existed.

And even more important
than that,

this same directive,

he gave that authority
to Vice President Nixon

to decide if the president
was incapacitated

or unable to fulfill the duties
of the office.

But it didn't have
the force of law.

MADDOW:
It was polite and unstressful,
apparently, between them,

but it was really precarious
for the country.

What if there had been a dispute

as to whether or not
the president was disabled

and the vice president
thereby enabled?

What if the president
and the vice president

disagreed about that?

It did put the issue
of when and how and whether

the vice president is running
the country front of mind.

♪ ♪

NARRATOR:
The gentlemen's agreement made
between Eisenhower and Nixon

had been replicated by
John Kennedy and Lyndon Johnson.

But there was little reason
to think

they would need to invoke it.

As Kennedy had put it
to an aide during the campaign,

"I'm 43 years old.

"I'm the healthiest candidate
for president.

And I'm not going to die
in office."

JOHN D. FEERICK:
In 1963, I was a young lawyer.

I had spent

the previous two years

writing an article

for the "Fordham Law Review."

I started when I saw newspaper
articles about disability

during
the Eisenhower administration,

and I took that on as my topic.

And it was published a month

before President Kennedy's
assassination.

And I figured, well,
it's probably going to go

on a library shelf somewhere,
but it's an important subject.

♪ ♪

When President Kennedy
was assassinated,

all of a sudden,
I got all kinds of calls:

Can we get your article?

Would you be on a program?

Now therefore,
I, Lyndon B. Johnson,

president of
the United States of America,

do appoint Monday next,
November 25,

the day of the funeral service
of President Kennedy,

to be a national day of mourning
throughout the United States.

COHEN:
The assassination
of John F. Kennedy

and the subsequent elevation
of Lyndon Johnson

was different
than any of the seven

deaths in office
that had happened before,

in part because
it was so dramatic.

The president of
the United States was shot

on live TV.

And then the alleged assassin

was shot just a couple days
later, also on live television.

It traumatized
an entire generation.

MADDOW:
President Kennedy
was shot in the head.

Had he survived
but been disabled,

was the country comfortable

leaving it up
to one man's say-so,

to his vice president,
Johnson's say-so,

as to whether or not
President Kennedy

was able to continue in
the office of the presidency?

♪ ♪

COHEN:
Back in the late 1700s
and early 1800s,

perhaps the question
of succession

didn't matter as much as it does
in the age of nuclear weapons.

But we're in the height
of the Cold War.

The Cuban Missile Crisis
has happened.

Um, you just can't live
in a world

with ambiguity
around succession.

♪ ♪

HITE:
Vietnam was moving forward.

There were
civil rights protests.

You had civil rights leaders
being assassinated.

And so there was a growing
awareness, like,

this is a dangerous world,

and mortality is a major
factor here for presidents.

This is real, this happens,

and it happens
pretty frequently.

All I have

I would have given gladly

not to be standing here today.

NARRATOR:
When President Johnson delivered
his special message

to Congress
on November 27, 1963,

five days after
the assassination,

there was more than usual
interest in the politicians

seated behind him on the dais:

to the left,
the Speaker of the House,

a 72-year-old with very little
international experience,

and the 86-year-old
president pro tem

of the Senate on the right.

Should something untoward
happen to the president now,

these men were the next in line.

The constitutional flaw
that had gone unmended

for nearly two centuries

was suddenly now at

the top of the national agenda.

ANNOUNCER: "CBS Reports:

The Crisis of
Presidential Succession."

I think that now is the time to,

for all of us to study it
very intensively.

We've just had
this great tragedy.

We came out of our state
possibly of shocked disbelief.

But now it is time
to do something

that common sense determines

is the best way to keep
our government functioning

without the possibility
of great, great confusion

right in the point of crisis.

(plane engine roars)

NARRATOR:
It was while taxiing
toward the terminal

at Chicago's O'Hare

that Birch Bayh,

the freshman senator
from Indiana,

first heard
that Kennedy had been shot.

The pilot had come
over the intercom.

Later, Bayh would recall
that as his taxi crawled

through the city's streets
that evening,

"bleak with rain and sorrow,"
he said,

his thoughts had gone
to Lyndon Johnson,

to the counsel he'd been
so well-suited to provide

as vice president,

and the counsel he surely would
need from his VP in turn.

"But there I sat up sharply,"
Bayh remembered.

"There was
no vice president now."

In fact, as of that moment,

the nation had been
without a vice president

for a cumulative total
of more than 36 years.

COHEN:
The fact that we had
so many moments in history

where there was a vacancy
in the vice presidency

tells you how little we thought

about the importance
of the vice presidency.

But to not have a provision

to replace the vice president

creates a significant break

in the line of succession.

♪ ♪

NARRATOR:
As it happened, Senator Bayh
recently had been made

chairman of the Subcommittee
on Constitutional Amendments,

an appointment now ripe
with purpose.

Just 20 days after
Kennedy's assassination,

Bayh announced that his
subcommittee would hold hearings

on the twinned problems

of presidential succession
and inability,

and proposed a
constitutional amendment,

Senate Joint Resolution 139,
meant to address both.

The American Bar Association
played a very important role

in the creation
of the amendment,

and I was given an opportunity
to participate in that.

The issue boiled down to,
how do we deal with

an involuntary inability?

That the president is...
there's something wrong.

We have to address it, and
what should those provisions be?

NARRATOR:
Presidential inability had been
a preoccupation on Capitol Hill

at least since the
Eisenhower administration.

A raft of remedies had been
proposed and hearings held,

but consensus proved elusive.

As the chairman of the House
Judiciary Committee,

Emanuel Celler, put it,

"When you had three congressmen
discussing

inability,
you had 17 different opinions."

MADDOW:
When they were debating
the circumstances in which

a vice president would take over

and become, effectively,
acting president,

it was like
an imagination debate.

Imagine all of the crazy things
that might befall a president.

And once you start talking
about things in those terms,

you're unlikely at any point

for everybody to arrive
at an idea

that seems like something
to handle all contingencies.

NARRATOR:
It took Bayh 18 months
to push his resolution

through both houses of Congress

and another 16 for it
to be ratified by the states,

before it was finally
and formally proclaimed

the 25th Amendment
to the U.S. Constitution.

I think it's
a happy announcement that

today, on the
tenth day of February 1967,

we can announce

the consummation of efforts
to find a solution

to a constitutional gap

which has existed for

the best part of two centuries.

NARRATOR: Broad consensus
at last had emerged

on one crucial point:

the nation needed
a vice president at all times.

Today, in this
crisis-ridden era,

there is no margin for delay,

no possible justification
for ever permitting a vacuum

in our national leadership.

And now, at last,
through the 25th Amendment,

we have the means of responding

to these crises
of responsibility.

GOLDSTEIN:
The 25th Amendment created
a means of filling

a vice presidential vacancy
during a presidential term.

♪ ♪

Also to transfer power
to the vice president

on a temporary basis
if the president was unable

to exercise presidential power.

It really reflected a new vision

of the vice presidency

as a important officer

in the executive branch,

a close and compatible colleague

of the president,

someone who was familiar

with the policy
and committed to the policies

of the administration

so that a transfer of power
would go smoothly.

(applauding)

FEERICK:
Even if a president had to have
a one-hour operation,

as Senator Bayh would say,

if missiles were flying
at America at that point,

you want to be sure
that there's no gap in terms

of where the executive power is,

and the person
that we have to look to

in that situation
is the vice president.

♪ ♪

NARRATOR:
Few observers thought
the amendment perfect,

but most agreed
it was flexible enough

to cover all manner
of contingencies.

What no one could have guessed
was just how, and how often,

it soon would be called
into play.

They were trying to imagine
everything,

but truth is always stranger
than fiction, right?

The, the real circumstances
of how things come to pass

are always wilder than the
hypotheticals that you imagine.

And so it was
with the vice presidency,

and so it was
with the 25th Amendment.

♪ ♪

NARRATOR:
When it was first reported
in the late summer of 1972,

the Watergate story might easily
have escaped notice:

an odd break-in
at the headquarters

of the
Democratic National Committee

involving five men,

a bagful of sophisticated
surveillance devices,

and 230 crisp $100 bills.

Then it became clear that
one of the Watergate burglars

had ties to the
reelection campaign

of President Richard M. Nixon,

and the nation's attention
was riveted as, month by month,

evidence mounted of a White
House conspiracy and cover-up.

By the middle of July 1973,

investigators were focused
on tape recordings

of conversations had
in Nixon's offices--

recordings that Nixon
patently refused to release

on the grounds
of executive privilege.

The Senate Watergate Committee
met and unanimously voted

to subpoena the tapes.

MADDOW:
So in 1973,

the Watergate political crisis
is in full flower.

The attorney general,
Elliot Richardson, is worried

not only that the president
might have committed crimes,

that the president might be
removed from office,

he's worried
that the president might die,

he's under so much stress.

And at the same time,
in the summer of 1973,

this U.S. attorney's office
in Maryland keeps calling

and asking for a meeting.

And they finally get the news
through to him

that this little public
corruption investigation

that they've been working on
in Maryland has produced

very good evidence
that Vice President Agnew

has been committing extortion
and taking cash bribes

in the White House.

Washington was stunned today
by the disclosure

that Vice President Agnew
is under criminal investigation

by federal authorities
in his home state of Maryland.

MADDOW:
Imagine you're Richard Nixon
in this moment.

Watergate is spiraling
and spiraling,

and getting worse and worse,

and threatening you more
and more with each passing day.

Now, here's your vice president
taking bribes,

taking envelopes stuffed
with $100 bills

during the time
he was vice president.

I will fight to prove
my innocence

and that I intend to remain
in the high office

to which I have been
twice elected.

(cheering and applauding)

MADDOW:
Spiro Agnew was chosen
by Richard Nixon

as his running mate in 1968,

and it was a bewildering choice
to most observers.

Spiro Agnew
was the governor of Maryland

and he was not
a high-profile member

of the Republican establishment
in any way.

That said, during
his vice presidency,

he really established
himself

as a political force,

as a divisive,
rabble-rousing figure

who antagonized
the press,

who excited the right-wing base
of the Republican Party.

(chanting, clapping)

MADDOW:
When Nixon and Agnew
ran for reelection in 1972,

that proved to be
a really winning combination.

It was a landslide
when they won in '72.

NARRATOR:
But Agnew had never been invited
into Nixon's inner circle.

Though he'd been given
an office in the West Wing--

the first vice president
to be so situated--

he'd been made to understand
that his proximity to the Oval

was purely symbolic.

"A little over a week ago,

I took a rather unusual step
for a vice president,"

Agnew complained in his memoir.

"I said something."

Before very long, his West Wing
perch had been repossessed.

Then came the glare
of simultaneous scandals

in the executive branch.

REPORTER:
"Time" magazine today
quotes officials

in the Department of Justice
as saying

that the case against
Vice President Agnew

is growing steadily stronger

and that an indictment
appears inevitable.

♪ ♪

HITE:
Nixon refused to support Agnew
or defend Agnew in any way.

He knew it was likely that
he himself would be impeached

or forced to resign,

knew that it would be a disaster
if Agnew were to succeed

to the presidency.

So Nixon's Justice Department
was actively pursuing

forcing Agnew from office.

AGNEW:
I will not resign if indicted.

I will not resign
if indicted.

(cheering and applauding)

I intend to stay and fight.

(crowd cheers and applauds)

MADDOW:
What Attorney General
Elliot Richardson decided to do

was allow
these federal prosecutors

to go ahead with the plan to
bring federal criminal charges,

dozens of felony charges,

against the sitting vice
president of the United States.

And when Vice President Agnew
was informed that that was

what was going to happen to him,

he entered into
a plea deal discussion.

Very unusually, it was
supervised by the judge himself.

Even more unusually,
the judge supervised

the plea deal discussions
at a motel.

I don't know.

That's what they did--
they met at a motel.

The two sides sat on opposite
twin beds in a motel room

with a judge.

They worked it out.

And what they worked out
was that Vice President Agnew

would not go to prison.

He would be assured
that he would not go to prison.

He would have to plead,
essentially, no contest

to at least one charge,

but, as part of the agreement,

he would resign
the vice presidency.

Vice President Agnew,
burying himself as a tax cheat,

resigned today under
an agreement which protects him

from prosecution
on charges of grafting.

The big question tonight,

who will succeed Spiro Agnew
as vice president?

REPORTER:
We're talking
about the 25th Amendment.

The Constitution providing
that a vacancy in office

is to be filled by a nominee
proposed by the president,

ratified by the Congress.

How is this thing going to work?

MAX ROBINSON:
There are some questions
to be answered,

but I think
we are extremely fortunate

that there is the 25th Amendment
to work with.

MADDOW:
The existence
of the 25th Amendment,

and the clarity
around how a vacancy

in the vice presidency
is filled,

was, I think, part of the reason
that Agnew's resignation

was sort of an okay resolution
to this crisis.

♪ ♪

NARRATOR:
With the Watergate tapes still
hostage to the president's claim

of executive privilege,
some in Congress now balked

at the 25th Amendment

and the prospect of having
to confirm

a vice president
of Nixon's choice.

"So long as the president
himself is so clearly

under the cloud of possible
disclosures on the tapes,"

insisted Senator Edward Kennedy,

"grave questions exist
as to the propriety

of the president's choosing
his own successor."

HITE:
Richard Nixon was
an embattled president,

and yet, the authority given
to him in the 25th Amendment

allowed him to exercise
considerable influence

on the political landscape.

And so he immediately started
looking for someone

to fill the vacancy.

NARRATOR:
In the end, his selection
was a calculated one:

the less overtly presidential
the nominee, Nixon reasoned,

the less controversial,

the more likely a speedy
confirmation by Congress.

I proudly present to you
the man whose name I will submit

to the Congress
of the United States

for confirmation as

the vice president
of the United States,

Congressman Gerald Ford
of Michigan.

(audience cheers and applauds)

BROWER:
He picks Gerald Ford,

this ex-football player,

very affable, very likable,

but not somebody who was going
to run for president.

He was actually thinking
of retiring.

He was going to run

one more time, he told his wife,

and then hang it up.

COHEN:
Gerald Ford was a obscure
congressman from Michigan.

Richard Nixon offered him
an opportunity to have

the second-most powerful job
in the country.

There's not a lot of instances
where somebody might view

the vice presidency
as an upgrade,

but from Michigan's
fifth district,

I'd say it's an upgrade.

♪ ♪

RON ZIEGLER:
I know many of you
are on deadline,

so I have a brief statement
to give you at this time

relating to action
which President Nixon

has taken tonight.

♪ ♪

President Nixon has tonight...

NARRATOR:
On October 20, 1973,

ten days after
Agnew's resignation

and two weeks before
Ford's confirmation hearings

were set to begin,

President Nixon managed to
hasten his own political demise.

In a fit of pique,
he demanded that Archibald Cox,

the special prosecutor
investigating Watergate,

be dismissed,
his office abolished,

and his files sealed--

an action that led, in turn,

to the immediate resignation

of, first, Attorney General
Richardson, then his deputy.

The newspapers dubbed it
"The Saturday Night Massacre,"

and cries for Nixon's ouster
rose across the land.

Nothing like this
has ever happened before.

And what it means is that
the worst dreams of everyone

who was worried about
the president's secret tapes

have now become true,
become reality.

NARRATOR:
Western Union reported that
in the following three days,

more than 150,000 telegrams
flooded Washington,

"the heaviest concentrated
volume on record."

As one columnist noted,
"Even Congress,

"which so often rolls on its
back like a spaniel,

is beginning to face
the necessity of impeachment."

In the Capitol Hill office
of the Speaker of the House,

the usually remote possibility
of a double vacancy

in the executive branch
suddenly loomed large.

MADDOW:
Here's Carl Albert,
Democratic Speaker of the House,

and two things land in his lap
at the same time.

First of all,
the vice president has resigned,

which means Carl Albert
has responsibility in the House

for confirming
a new vice president.

Simultaneously, Richard Nixon,
the president,

is going to be impeached,

and Carl Albert
has responsibility

for dealing with the House side
of the impeachment process.

And if there is no president
and there is no vice president,

who becomes president?

(laughing):
Carl Albert,
speaker of the House.

So if he wanted to, if he was
of that kind of a mindset,

Carl Albert in that moment
could have engineered

the ousting of the
president of the United States,

not filling the vice presidency
of the United States,

and thus installing himself
as president.

Which would have put
the presidency in the hands

of the Democratic Party

just months after
the entire country had chosen

the Republican Party to lead
by a landslide.

It would've been
a partisan coup.

It would've been legal,

it would've been
procedurally sound,

and it would've been
a revolution.

FORD:
These are not ordinary times,

nor, I suppose,
will the times ever be ordinary

when the 25th Amendment
must be invoked.

NARRATOR:
By the time Ford's confirmation
hearings got underway,

the likelihood that
the vice presidential nominee

ultimately would succeed
to the presidency

was on everyone's mind.

Never before was a candidate
for national office

subjected to such
close scrutiny.

Some 350 FBI agents
were dispatched

from 33 different field offices

to look into every aspect
of Ford's life,

while Ford himself patiently
endured hours upon hours

of questioning by members
of both houses of Congress.

Today, having confirmed the
nomination of Gerald R. Ford,

the proceedings required

by Section Two
of the 25th Amendment

to the United States
Constitution

have been complied with.

Raise your right hand,
Mr. Ford.

Put your hand on the Bible.

NARRATOR:
Confirmed swiftly
and by overwhelming majority,

Ford was sworn in
on December 6, 1973,

the 40th vice president
of the United States.

He would spend fewer than
eight months in the job

before the U.S. Supreme Court
ordered the long-disputed

White House tapes released--

among them, three conversations
that proved Nixon

had been party
to the Watergate cover-up.

♪ ♪

A day or two later,
Ford went with his wife, Betty,

to visit what was to be
their new home:

a dwelling authorized
by an act of Congress

shortly after the passage

of the 25th Amendment,

the first official residence
ever provided

to the vice president
of the United States.

The Fords are the first family

with the opportunity
to live there,

and they get this tour,

and Betty Ford
gets to pick out the china

for the vice president.

And Gerald Ford turns to her
and says,

"Betty, we're not going
to ever live here."

He saw the writing on the wall.

They were going to be moving
into the White House.

I have never been a quitter.

To leave office before my term
is completed is abhorrent

to every instinct in my body.

But as president,

I must put the interests
of America first.

WALTER CRONKITE:
The president of the
United States leaves office,

the first in our
189-year history

to do so by the route
of resignation.

HITE:
The transition went
remarkably well.

It was essentially seamless.

I think in part that is
because the 25th Amendment

had allowed there to be a
procedure for filling vacancies

in the vice presidency.

WARREN BURGER:
Mr. Vice President,

are you prepared to take
the oath of office

as president
of the United States?
I am, sir.

HITE:
The president was able
to choose someone

from his own political party,

so there was no conflict
that way.

Ladies and gentlemen,

the president
of the United States.

(audience applauds)

HITE:
And at the end of the day,
Ford was in fact prepared.

He was in fact qualified.

My fellow Americans, our long
national nightmare is over.

Our Constitution works.

Our great republic is
a government of laws

and not of men.

BROWER:
Ford had never been
on a presidential ticket.

He had never run for any office

higher than this one
little district in Michigan.

Suddenly, here he was,

the most powerful person
in the world.

♪ ♪

NARRATOR:
It had all happened so quickly,

the Nixons hadn't yet had the
chance to move their belongings

out of the White House.

BROWER:
The Fords had
this very sweet, middle-class,

colonial house
in Alexandria, Virginia.

Being the affable people
they were,

they gave the Nixons time
to get their things out

and make the transition
and move.

And so there was a period
of time there

where the Fords were actually
the president and first lady,

living in their house
in Virginia.

This was just a mere decade
after JFK had been assassinated.

So you have this president

living in a quiet suburban
community outside of D.C.

So they had to put bulletproof
glass in the master bedroom.

They had to reinforce
the driveway with steel rods

underneath for the president's
motorcade cars to be parked.

They had Secret Service in the
garage, setting up their post.

Ford said, "Our poor neighbors
went through hell."

(applauding)

NARRATOR:
Once again, for the second time
in just over a year,

the vice presidency
stood vacant,

and the reality
of the procedures

outlined by the 25th Amendment
had begun to sink in.

As one senator had foreseen
even before Nixon resigned,

"The nation will no longer
be democratically governed."

PONNURU:
Gerald Ford was the first
president in U.S. history,

and so far is the only president
in U.S. history,

to assume the office

without having been elected

president or vice president.

He had never faced
a national electorate before,

and yet he became
president of the United States.

HITE:
Adding even more to the
whole oddness of the situation,

if you will, was that
the first task Gerald Ford had

as president was to choose
a new vice president.

REPORTER:
So he comes through the door now
with his choice.

And the choice, and this is...
REPORTER 2:
Nelson Rockefeller.

REPORTER 1:
It is Nelson Rockefeller,
the former governor of New York,

who was leading the list of
speculation among many people.

PONNURU:
Nelson Rockefeller
had been a leader

of what was then a very strong

liberal to moderate faction
in the Republican Party.

He made serious bids
for the presidency,

although he had not won
a Republican nomination.

And he was somebody who,
as governor of New York,

was a widely respected figure
nationally.

Mr. President,

the vice president-designate
of the United States.

FEERICK:
By the end of that year, we have
two of our national officers,

first and only time
in the history of the country,

who were appointed, so to speak,
under the 25th Amendment.

But it worked.

I pledge myself to the fullest
limit of my capacity

to work with you, Mr. President,
and the Congress

in the great task of building
the strength of America.

♪ ♪

NARRATOR:
When Rockefeller took office
on December 19, 1974,

he assumed a position
newly imbued

with stature and significance.

For if the 25th Amendment had
sidestepped democratic ideals

in laying a path to the office,

it also had established--

constitutionally
and once and for all--

the importance
of the second-in-command.

HITE:
When Nelson Rockefeller
assumed the vice presidency,

it was a much-changed
institution

even from a few years prior,
let alone historically.

When Richard Nixon was
vice president, he had a staff,

a small staff, and a budget
of under $48,000 a year.

When Rockefeller became
vice president,

he had a staff of over 70
and a budget of $2 million.

The office of the vice president

began to mirror
the office of the president.

The vice president had
special assistants

on domestic and foreign policy,

had a press secretary,
had a chief of staff.

Those things may seem
just symbolic, but they're not.

They imply power
and they imply authority.

Whether the vice president
then actually exercises power

is a whole different story.

♪ ♪

MADDOW:
Having that new
constitutional amendment

focused on the vice presidency,

both implicitly acknowledging

the importance
of the vice presidency

and also systematizing, um,
the nature of the office,

I think did underscore
for the country

that the vice presidency
is a thing.
(chuckles)

That it's not only
a contingency,

that it is an office
that must be filled

and that has an important role
in the country.

GOLDSTEIN:
Vice president has been
a principal part

of presidential decision-making

in virtually
every administration

over the last 50 years.

Being vice president gives you
opportunities to operate

as a governmental official
in ways

that most high executive
officials never experience.

♪ ♪

To take an office

that for most of our history
has been lampooned

and to turn it
into a consequential position

is really one of the
great modern successes

of our system of government.

♪ ♪

NARRATOR:
The office that Vice President
John Adams occupied

at the dawn
of American democracy

would be largely unrecognizable
to him now.

More than two centuries on,

it can no longer credibly
be described as nothing.

But the vice president
is still and always

a heartbeat away
from being everything.

♪ ♪

ANNOUNCER:
"American Experience:
The American Vice President"

is available on DVD.

To order, visit ShopPBS
or call 1-800-PLAY-PBS.

"American Experience" is
also available with PBS Passport

and on Amazon Prime Video.

♪ ♪

♪ ♪