I Beg Your Pardon?

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"As we are a nation under God, so I am sworn to uphold our laws with the help of God. And I have sought such guidance and searched my own conscience with special diligence to determine the right thing for me to do with respect to my predecessor in this place, Richard Nixon, and his loyal wife and family. Theirs is an American tragedy in which we all have played a part. It could go on and on and on, or someone must write the end to it. I have concluded that only I can do that, and if I can, I must."

Gerald Ford
Sept. 8, 1974

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Many presidents have been known as "His Accidency." It is a label that is generally reserved for those who were elected vice president and then became president after the guy who was at the top of the ticket when the people voted on the matter died. There have been eight presidents who died in office.

Sometimes the voters have been pleased with the accidental president's performance — well, pleased enough to give him a full term on his own. Sometimes they haven't been pleased, and they voted him out. Sometimes the accidental president sees the writing on the wall and decides not to seek a full term.

Gerald Ford was a unique case in American history. He must be the most accidental president of all because he only became vice president when he was appointed to replace the duly elected vice president in the first use of the 25th Amendment to fill a vacancy in the vice presidency. Then, when Richard Nixon resigned, he became president.

Maybe that unique role in American history was liberating for Ford. Maybe he felt he could do things differently than the three dozen men who had occupied the presidency before him precisely because he had not sought the presidency or the vice presidency.

"I am acutely aware that you have not elected me as your president by your ballots," he said on the day he took office. A few minutes later, he pledged, "If you have not chosen me by secret ballot, neither have I gained office by any secret promises."

The people believed him, even people who loathed his predecessor. They were willing to give him a chance. He came across as pleasant and sincere. It was a refreshing change. But it didn't last, largely because of what happened 40 years ago today.

It started out as a rather routine late–summer Sunday. Pro football would start its season a week later; college football had kicked things off with a bare–bones schedule the day before. For sports enthusiasts, the only thing of note besides baseball's pennant races was daredevil Evel Knievel's scheduled attempt to jump the Snake River Canyon in Idaho in the Skycycle X–2, a steam–powered rocket. He failed in the attempt, suffering some broken bones but nothing major.

But Knievel, who had been the recipient of considerable hype before the attempt, was knocked completely off the front pages. Ford, who had barely been in office a month, announced that he was pardoning his predecessor. The sense of betrayal showed in Ford's approval rating. A week after taking office, Ford's approval rating was 71% — nearly three times Nixon's approval rating when he resigned the week before.

But Ford's approval rating tumbled to 50% after the pardon, and many people — myself included — believe he never recovered politically. There were a few fluctuations, but, for the most part, his approval rating remained in the 40s for the rest of his presidency.

With the pardon, much of the good will that had accompanied Ford into office evaporated.

In the Wall Street Journal, Ken Gormley and David Shribman agree that the nation was "stunned" at the time. That would be impossible to dispute. "Now," they contend, "there's almost universal agreement that Ford was right." Personally, I have mixed feelings on that. Maybe I always will. I have come to believe that there was at least some justification for the pardon. Maybe it did allow the nation to heal. But even Ford must have known that the healing process would be long. The American people had been deceived — a lot — by their presidents for 10 years. They weren't going to be over it in a day or a week or a month or a year — or even two years when Ford would have to face the voters.

I don't know if Ford's pardon of Nixon hastened the nation's healing process, as Ford hoped, but it did resolve a dilemma for his Justice Department.

Memos show officials at Justice were wrestling with Article I, Section 3, Clause 7 of the Constitution, which said that a person removed from office by impeachment and conviction "shall nevertheless be liable to indictment, trial, judgment and punishment, according to the law."

The Constitution, however, said nothing about a president who resigned from office. Ford's pardon effectively ended that discussion.

The First Unelected Vice President

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On this day 40 years ago, the vice presidency had been vacant for only a couple of days.

The former vice president, Spiro Agnew, had resigned, and there was much speculation about the identity of his replacement.

My family, as I have mentioned here before, was living in Nashville. My father was on a four–month sabbatical, and, on this day in 1973, we were roughly halfway through our time there. My parents decided that the family needed to get away for the weekend, and Oct. 12 in 1973 was on a Friday so, when my brother and I finished school for the day, my family loaded up our car and went somewhere that was about a two–hour drive from Nashville.

I don't remember where we went. It was some sort of rustic lodge–like compound on a body of water, probably a lake, and I seem to remember you could fish there, but, even though my father knew how to fish, I have no memory of him fishing that weekend.

That may have been because it rained most of that weekend. And my memory is that my mother and father and brother and I spent most of the weekend in that cabin watching TV when we weren't at the window watching the rain.

(We probably called that the "Goodloe luck," of which I have written before. It was our version of Murphy's law, I suppose; most of my memories of the "Goodloe luck" do seem to include rain spoiling camping trips and weekend getaways. So it was on that day in 1973.)

My most vivid memory is of that Friday night — 40 years ago tonight — when President Nixon came on TV to announce that he was nominating Gerald Ford to fill the vice presidential vacancy. And I remember the four of us watching him make that announcement.

It was an historic occasion, the first time the 25th Amendment, which clarified presidential succession, was invoked. It was also, as historian Theodore H. White wrote, "a ceremony marked by a tasteless cheerfulness." With so much suspicion and uncertainty swirling around him in October 1973, Nixon seemed oddly detached when he announced Ford's nomination. I honestly think that, on that day, he believed that he would serve the rest of his term, that he would beat the rap.

As I wrote here a couple of years ago, the language of Article II of the Constitution was ambiguous on the subject of presidential succession, saying that, in the event of a vacancy (either temporary or permanent) in the presidency, the vice president should "act as [p]resident ... until the [d]isability be removed, or a president shall be elected."

Presidential succession apparently wasn't a pressing concern for the Founding Fathers. It was first put to the test about half a century after the Constitution was written when President William Henry Harrison died and his vice president, John Tyler, interpreted the Constitution and determined that he should be the actual president, not an acting president, and he took the oath of office, setting a precedent that was followed for more than a century.

But in 1967 the 25th Amendment was ratified, establishing a clear line of succession. And one of its provisions was that, in the event of a vacancy in the vice presidency, the president had to nominate a successor whose name would be sent to Congress for its approval.

Agnew's resignation was the first opportunity for a president to nominate a vice president under the amendment. When Lyndon Johnson became president after the assassination of John F. Kennedy in 1963, the vice presidency was vacant for more than a year, but then it was filled by Hubert Humphrey, who was Johnson's running mate in the 1964 election — and, thus, the office was occupied when the 25th Amendment was adopted.

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And, on that night, we watched as all three networks covered Nixon's announcement that he wanted Gerald Ford to be his new vice president.

Only one other time since that day — nearly a year later, when Ford had to choose his own successor following Nixon's resignation — has a president been called upon to nominate someone to fill a vice presidential vacancy.

As unpopular as Nixon was at that time, I really believe that few, if any, people who watched him introduce Ford as Agnew's successor realized they were looking at the man who would be president within a year.

Fewer still probably realized we would witness the nomination of another unelected vice president within a year — and then not see it happen again for at least four decades.

That is how history works sometimes, with similar events lumped together in one short period of time, then nothing like it again for decades. Kind of like horse racing's Triple Crown.

The Day Spiro Agnew Resigned

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In the fall of 1973, my family was living in Nashville while my father was on a four–month sabbatical.

We spent the previous summer in Austria. While we were there, we tried to keep up with what was happening in the Watergate hearings through the international editions of TIME and Newsweek, but the reports were not as complete as Americans were getting here at home — and, of course, there was no way for us to monitor the Watergate hearings that were taking place that summer.

I knew that President Nixon was under mounting public pressure over his involvement in activities related to the Watergate break–in, but I had no idea where it would go. And there must have been news reports about Nixon's vice president, Spiro Agnew, and the problems he was having with those who were investigating his activities as governor of Maryland — even if most of the activity was conducted in secrecy.

Bob Woodward and Carl Bernstein wrote in "The Final Days" that "[b]y August, the details of the Agnew investigation were all over the newspapers," and the following month "plea–bargaining with the vice president's attorneys" had begun.

With everything else that was going on in my life at that time, I suppose I was oblivious to what was happening with Agnew.

Maybe most Americans were, too. Maybe the plea negotiations were conducted in relative secrecy as well. Anyway, I have no memory of anything being said about Agnew's legal problems. (Of course, I was quite young at the time.)

It came as a surprise to me when, 40 years ago today, on an unseasonably warm October afternoon, I walked into the apartment in which my family was living after school had dismissed for the day and found my mother watching news reports on TV. Mind you, this was in the years before cable's explosive popularity, before cable news networks came along. A news report in the middle of an ordinary Wednesday afternoon could only mean that something serious had happened.

And it had. Agnew had resigned.

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He wasn't the first vice president to resign. And, clearly, it wasn't as spontaneous as I naively thought it was at the time.

Agnew submitted his letter of resignation to Nixon, officially saying only that "I hereby resign the Office of Vice President of the United States, effective immediately."

In a more personal letter to the president that was submitted at the same time, Agnew observed that "the accusations against me cannot be resolved without a long, divisive and debilitating struggle in the Congress and in the courts." He had concluded, he wrote, that it was in America's "best interests" for him to resign.

He never addressed the question of whether he was guilty, either in his communication with Nixon or in his actual court appearance, in which he pled nolo contendre — no contest.

In his reply, Nixon didn't address that side of it, either.

Nixon, who also would resign about 10 months later, said he knew Agnew's decision to resign "has been as difficult as any facing a man in public life could be," and it left Nixon "with a great sense of personal loss," but he said he respected the decision.

Nixon commended Agnew for his "courage and candor ... strong patriotism and ... profound dedication to the welfare of the nation," and he thanked him for his service as vice president.

And then, under the provisions of the 25th Amendment — and with everything else that was vying for his attention — Nixon had to choose Agnew's replacement. This was something no other president had ever had to do, and no one knew how long it might take.

Turned out it didn't take too long.

Presidential Succession

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Today, of course, is the anniversary of one of the most significant events of the 20th century — the assassination of President Kennedy here in Dallas in 1963.

For 46 years, one of the things that has bothered conspiracy theorists is the behavior of Vice President Lyndon Johnson on that day. In a recent documentary on the History Channel, it was suggested that Johnson hastily arranged to take the oath of office on board Air Force One before leaving Dallas in part because he feared that Attorney General Robert F. Kennedy would try to find some way to deprive him of the presidency.

In 1963, that might have seemed unlikely to an American public that had long been conditioned to the idea that the vice president would be the next in line if a president died in office. But that was a procedure that was rooted in a 122–year–old precedent that, independent of constitutional authority, had elevated seven vice presidents to the presidency following a president's death. In fact, presidential succession was not established legally until the passage of the 25th Amendment in 1967.

The truth is that Johnson's concerns were not unjustified even if LBJ appeared, on the surface, to be a bit paranoid.

This may be obvious to readers of this blog, but I have long been fascinated by history's ironic twists and turns. November 22 is loaded with them — and not just in the 20th century.

Take, for example, the case of Richard Nixon and the "Wilson desk."

When Nixon became vice president, he asked for the "Wilson desk" for his office, and his request was granted. But it turned out the desk didn't belong to the Wilson that Nixon had in mind. Nixon was an admirer of Woodrow Wilson, the 28th president, but the desk that adorned his vice presidential office and, later, the Oval Office had belonged to Henry Wilson, the 18th vice president, who served under Ulysses S. Grant.

Henry Wilson was Grant's running mate when Grant sought re–election in 1872. He replaced Vice President Schuyler Colfax on the ticket. Colfax was embroiled in a scandal and was considered too controversial; ironically, it was revealed after the election that Wilson was tainted by the same scandal.

That isn't the part that I find truly ironic, though. After being sworn in, Wilson suffered a serious stroke that affected his ability to preside over the Senate although he tried to persevere in spite of his limitations. Then, on this day in 1875, he suffered a second, fatal stroke, becoming the fourth vice president to die in office. The vice presidency remained vacant until Rutherford B. Hayes and his running mate, William Wheeler, took office in 1877.

A century later, in 1973, Nixon's vice president, Spiro Agnew, resigned amid charges of corruption, and about a month later, Nixon nominated a replacement for Agnew under the provisions of the 25th Amendment. Nixon, of course, chose Gerald Ford, who succeeded him when Nixon resigned in 1974 and became the second president to nominate an unelected vice president.

Here's the ironic part — for me, anyway. If the 25th Amendment had been the law of the land when Henry Wilson was alive, Grant would have had to pick a replacement for him when he died in 1875. But the vice presidency remained vacant for nearly 16 months.

If Grant had died before his term ended, I suppose he would have been replaced by the president pro tempore of the Senate (which would have been Republican Thomas Ferry of Michigan — the state Ford represented in Congress). In Grant's day, the president pro tempore was next in line after the vice president. Congress changed the order in 1886, making members of a president's Cabinet the next in line until the Presidential Succession Act of 1947, which made the speaker of the House next after the vice president. The speaker remained second in line behind the vice president after the passage of the 25th Amendment.

America has been a work in progress for more than two centuries. If the Founding Fathers had been blessed with the ability to anticipate every possible scenario, they could have spelled out from the beginning the procedures for presidential succession and filling vice presidential vacancies.

If that had been the case, Johnson's legal ascendance to the presidency in 1963 could not have been questioned by RFK or anyone else. Instead of being in a hurry to establish a legitimate claim to the Oval Office, LBJ could have focused on whether the assassination had been an international conspiracy involving the Russians or the Cubans, a domestic conspiracy involving organized crime or rogue operatives in the intelligence community or the act of a lone individual — and taking the appropriate steps.

But, as it turned out, the practice of a vice president succeeding a president who did not complete his term in office was not established until 1841, when William Henry Harrison died only a month after taking office and John Tyler, amid considerable confusion brought about by an unprecedented development, took the oath of office. At the time, the ambiguous language of Article II of the Constitution did not indicate whether a vice president would become president or merely an "acting president" if the duly elected president was unable to discharge the duties of the office.

Tyler then served the rest of his term with no vice president.

Back to the "Wilson desk."

Nixon apparently believed throughout his eight years as vice president that it was Woodrow Wilson's desk in his office because he asked for the same desk when he became president in 1969. He even referred to it once in a speech from the White House — his "silent majority" speech in November 1969.

After learning the truth about the desk, speechwriter William Safire took it upon himself to break the news to Nixon, and he briefly discussed — in his book "Before The Fall" — a memo he wrote to Nixon explaining what apparently had happened.

"Spin" was a concept that had not been defined at the time, but Safire proceeded to give the mistake the best spin he could, pointing out to Nixon that Henry Wilson had been an early abolitionist and one of the founders of Nixon's Republican Party.

Nixon, though, was never one to admit a mistake, and he never — to my knowledge — publicly corrected the error.

My guess is that he tried to cover it up.

The Man

Today, on the day set aside to remember the birth of Martin Luther King Jr. 80 years ago, I've been thinking about a book I read as a teenager.

It was called "The Man," and it was written by Irving Wallace in 1964. He wrote many remarkable novels — and a few works of nonfiction, like "The Book of Lists" and "The People's Almanac," as well.

"The Man" was written before the 25th Amendment to the Constitution was ratified in 1967.

(The 25th, in case you aren't familiar with the amendments, provides the means for a president to nominate someone to be the next vice president when the duly elected vice president has died or resigned or cannot fulfill his responsibilities. It was first used when Spiro Agnew resigned in 1973 and Richard Nixon chose Gerald Ford to replace him. The following year, after Nixon himself resigned and Ford became president, Ford chose Nelson Rockefeller to be the next vice president.

(The 25th also provides a framework for the vice president to be the "acting president" when the president is unable to carry out his duties for any reason. Fans of the TV show "The West Wing" may remember that the president in that series invoked the 25th Amendment to temporarily hand over power to the speaker of the House when the president's daughter had been kidnapped. The move was hailed as patriotic in the show because it showed the president was putting the interests of the country ahead of his own and didn't want important decisions to be made by a distraught father.)

That's important to remember because, in the novel, the vice presidency is vacant; then, on a trip overseas, the president is killed in a bizarre accident and the speaker of the House (who was next in line to be president) dies during surgery. That makes the next person in line the president pro tempore of the Senate — who, in this case, happens to be a black man.

The novel then becomes an examination of the many problems faced by America's first black president. He has to deal with racists who aren't happy to have a black man in the Oval Office. At the other end of the political spectrum, he has to deal with black activists and their agenda. He is also the target of an assassination attempt, and he is impeached for firing the secretary of state — in proceedings that are remarkably similar to the ones surrounding Andrew Johnson's impeachment nearly 100 years earlier.

On a personal level, he has to contend with the racial issues faced by one of his children, who looks white and is harassed.

Eight years after the book was written, it was made into a movie. The film originally was intended to be a TV movie, but it was released theatrically instead because of its sponsors' concerns about racial backlash.

The black president was played by James Earl Jones, who may be best known for providing the voice of Darth Vader in the "Star Wars" movies, although he has had a long and distinguished career — which began with a part in Stanley Kubrick's "Dr. Strangelove" in 1964.

Others in the cast included Georg Stanford Brown (who appeared with Jones in the TV blockbuster "Roots" a few years later), Burgess Meredith and Martin Balsam. Rod Serling (of "Twilight Zone" fame) was the screenwriter.

"The Man" was written more than 40 years ago. It was written, obviously, in a different time and in a country that was different from the one in which we live today. But Barack Obama, like James Earl Jones' character, will face many challenges in his presidency. He will not always be the popular figure he is on the eve of his presidency. And he will need everyone's support to succeed.