Transcripts For CSPAN3 History Bookshelf Jared Cohen Accidental Presidents 20240712

Recording, if you could just come to the microphone by the white pillar so we can hear your questions and engage in a nice discussion, and lastly, once everything is done if you could please fold up your chairs and place them against the pillar. Our staff, as in me, would greatly appreciate that. [laughter] tonight im pleased to introduce jared cohen, the founder and ceo of jigsaw alphabet inc. As well as an adjunct senior fellow at the council on foreign relations. The New York Times best selling author with eric schmidt of the new digital age and has written the children of jihad. One of the great lessons of american politics that ive learned is tale of two brothers. One went off to sea and one became Vice President. Neither was heard from ever again. [laughter] however, in rare case the Vice President is not relegated to obscurity. Namely, when the president dies. And his newest, best New York Times best selling book, accidental president s, cohen investigates these men. Who ascended to the presidency because of these unfortunate circumstances. Becoming president under the circumstances is often a thankless task and many of these men have disappointed rather than reassured, although several exceeded expectations. Cohen delves into the implications the system of argues this may not be the only way to handle succession. What at the, author of lee understands dough divein should writes jared cohen treats to us colorful and momentous episodeness our history. He reveals the historic importance of some lesser known leaders and highlights the greatness of tr, truman and lyndon johnson. We learn why america is a resilient nation and our constitution a living document. Lessons very powerful for today. Please join me in welcoming jared cohen. [applause] jared thank you all very much for having me. I cant think of a better place to give a talk about this book than this incredible book store. When i lived in d. C. It was my absolute favorite place to be and i have not been here in some time. I love the backdrop of all these books. The place i want to start is why i wrote this book. I think it is important context for somebody who spent the last eight years every single day as a technology ceo and before that four years working in Foreign Policy. So people ask me when i tell people i am writing a book, over the past there and years, the ask is it a book about cyber war . No. Is about Foreign Policy . No. They say what it is that, and about dead president s. And its confusing to them. Its confusing to anybody unless you grew up with me. When is was eight my parents bought in the a Childrens Book called the buck stops here. It was one of these wonderful rhyming books, with different page for each president. Me, tryingts read to to transform me into a precocious child, they did not realize they would have to have eight different conversations about death. And my poor parents, it was bad enough they dont know mckinley was, they had to explain to me why mckinley was keeled over in this cartoonlike picture. [laughter] when you are an eightyearold and you have to deal with topics like death and assassination, my parents not figure out what they had gotten themselves into. The interest sustained over time and when oliver stone came out with the film about kennedys assassination i decided to solve the kennedy assassination. So i annexed a room in our house and turned into it the kennedy room. And i put pictures and xerox copies of the zapruder footage all across the walls, with yarn and thumbtacks from one picture to another. And i had wild conspiracy theories, none of which i remember and thats deliberate. So the obsession and fascination got into president ial collecting and memorabilia and i have a strange subcollection of president ial locks of hair which , is weird until you see it. Its quite fascinating. This really has been a passion of mine and trust me, it really is something. This has been an interest my entire life so i spend all day thinking about innovation and the future but i have this sort of growing itch to dig into the past. When my wife was pregnant with a our eldest daughter, who is now five years old, i needed a nesting project because i was annoying everybody. And i decided to resurrect this child interest and write a book about the eight times in history that a u. S. President died in office and how history was , transformed by a heartbeat. And this history in addition to being something im deeply passionate about it resonates on , so many Different Levels because were in a time where everybody is look agent Leadership Qualities and we have a fascination with politics, and a fascination with history but our history is also anchored around transitions that used to happen every ten to 20 years. Most people are familiar with one or two president s who died in office, most people are surprised there were eight. So, what im going to do today, not going through every single one of them because i have to leave you with some incentive to buy the book. But i will talk to you but the first time it happened and what i think was the biggest catastrophe of the accidental transition. I will share who i think was the biggest and the most unexpected success and why. And then i will talk you through close calls because in addition , to eight president s who died in office you had another 19 who nearly died in office. See of eight president s who die so you have six of the eight eight president s who die in office six of the eight presents , who ascended to the presidency also nearly died in office, mostly through assassination attempts. So we will get into that, but i want to whet your appetite a little bit. Lets go back to the framers of the constitution who didnt want a Vice President. They do not think much about the vice presidency. They viewed it as an electoral mechanism. And so naturally its not something that they had thought about. They had given a little thought to president ial succession but if you look at article 2 in the constitution, what it says is in the event of the resignation of the president , death, or inability to discharge the duties of the said office, the same shall devolve on the vicepresident. The constitution is completely clear that in the case of a vacancy of the presidency, the Vice President acts as president and discharges those duties. The constitution is not clear about whether the Vice President becomes the president. So, 1840, the famous catch phrase, tippy canoe and tyler too propels William Henry on, the famous whig general into the white house. The whigs are so happy they finally got a president. He dies 30 days later, and despite the fact that history tells us he died of pneumonia it was later proven that bad sewer systems around the white house was likely responsible for his death. Later, James Polk Seth and Zachary Tyler staff, but well save that for another gruesome lecture. So, john tyler, who was thrown even though he was basically a on the ticket democrat because , the whigs needed to win virginia and needed somebody would good woo give a nod to states rights, skips town after the inaguration. He skips town because of how irrelevant the Vice President is. So when a messenger shows up at his house deliver the telegram the president is dead, john tyler who has in fact studied the constitution, understands the fight thats about to ensue because he enter threats the he interprets the constitution as he is now the president and he knows the cabinet will disagree and he knows that congress will disagree. So he races back in very dramatic fashion, combination of horse and carriage, boat and train, and he proceeds to get into a fight with the cabinet. He then spends the first 30 months of his presidency arguing with congress whether he his is whether he is the acting president or the president. Ultimately, he wins that battle even though people send him mail for the rest of the presidency addressed to him as Vice President which he returns unopened, or at acting president , which he also returns enopened. But he sets that precedent. What is interesting is you dont have a mechanism for replacing the Vice President of the United States until the 25th 25th until the 25th amendment does ratified in so, you have john 1967. Tyler as the nations first accidental president. He set a precedent that he is now president. Now that precedent carries through until lbj. Lby becomes president upon the death of john f. Kennedy based on a precedent set by john tyler in 1841. So we have never had a situation where president has died in office and the 25th amendment has formally made them president. That only happens with nixon and ford and i am sure somebody will ask me why i didnt include nixon, ford as a separate chapter and at some point i will be into the punch and answer the question. The reason that the vacancy of the Vice President is important is that john tyler is a disaster for the whig party because again he is basically a democrat. He doesnt subscribe to the whig agenda at all. Like most of the accidental president s that came after him he has a completely different , set of policy views than his predecessor and he takes the country in a completely different direction. Like all of the eight accidental president s he was ostracized , from the administration, had no relationship with the predecessor, i did not have a good sense of what was happening in the administration he was part of. At least for him the information , was only 30 days. So, tyler, as he subverts the whig agenda with the veto are of vetoing of two national banks, ends up adding formally excommunicated from the whig party. So henry clay leads the charge to kick john tyler out of the party. So john tyler, the first accidental president , becomes the president without a party. He, like all accidental president s, becomes obsessed with the idea of im determined not to be an accident. I need to win election in my own right. So the only path for him to win since hein 1844, cannot run as a wake and the democrats do not want him because they are mad at him running as a way, is to change the legal discourse and covertly annex texas. So we look at the impulsiveness and erratic behavior of our current approximate, i remind of john tyler in a moment political rage decided to annex texas which precipitated war with mexico which brought us one step closer to the civil war. Going back to the vacancy in the vicepresidency, this is important because on february 28, 1844, john tyler is sailing on the potomac, on board the uss princeton and a gala on the potomac, this stateoftheart nautical wonder designed to celebrate American Naval prowess and the fact he was on the verge of texas annexation. So they fire of the state of the art gun called the peacemaker as they go by mount vernon as a tribute to George Washington and the gun explodes, kills the secretary of state, the secretary of the navy, multiple ambassadors and ministers, kills john tylers favorite slave whose mother was compensated 200. It kills a number of senators, members of congress and would , have killed john tyler had he not been downstairs flirting with a woman half his age who he was desperately in love with as a woodwork president who was more interested in the captains son. So as they heard the explosion they came up to the deck and her name was julia gardner, and she saw that among the dead was her father. New york state senator. Laying on the ground. She faints into john tylers arms. He picks her up, carries her down the gangplank. She is startled and wakes up and does not realize it is the president carrying her. And you read about this in a letter that she later writes, tyler writes that had she not them off the gangplank they both would have died. So he almost ends up dying a second time. And he marries her and they have eight children. In addition to the seven he had. During the administration of John Washington and has two grandsons who are still alive. Child 15 fathered a child in his 7s and that child fathered two children in his 70s, who arenow in their midand late 90s so thats the israel of john tylers offspring. Fun fact, use it at a cocktail party. Had tyler died in that explosion or had he died falling off the gangplank, the nations first accidental president would have been dead. And i believe very strongly that the tyler precedent which was already controversial, and already hotly contested, would have been very unlikely to hold. What that means is millard fillmore, who im sure you think about, Andrew Johnson, Chester Arthur, Teddy Roosevelt, callan kugel harry truman and lyndon , johnson could have ascended to the role of acting president instead of president. ,so thats the story of the first accidental president and what happened. Now, what i want to do is juxtapose what i think is the biggest catastrophe with what i think is the biggest Success Story of an accidental president. Im almost tempted to say despite the fact that we more or less winged president ial succession, and despite the fact that the Founding Fathers gave us a guide but nothing close a blueprint, im tempted to say we navigated through pretty well and got pretty lucky. Its a remarkable story and i can almost say that except for the fact that when Abraham Lincoln died we got Andrew Johnson. And we are supposed to get Abraham Lincolns vision of reconstruction, instead the bullet of John Wilkes Booth gives us Andrew Johnson, man born a racist who died a racist, the last president to own slaves. A man who did not emancipate his own slaves until seven months after the emancipation proclamation. And a man who ended up resurrecting almost every old element of the confederacy which paved the way for black codes which paved the way for jim crow laws which gave us segregation. If i look at the story of civil rights and postcivil war america to me it can be described in some respects as to story of two president ial assassination, beginning with Abraham Lincoln, and ending with James Garfield. So, when i set to write the chapter about lincoln and Andrew Johnson, you think what can i write the great scholars have not written about the seminal moment in history . I decided i wanted to mitigate vindicate the one stain on lincolns record which is putting Andrew Johnson a heartbeat away from the president. Back then, president s did not choose running mates. But this was such an important moment and lincoln was so certain he would lose in 1864, that he engaged in a massive intrigue outside his circle to move Hannibal Hamlin off the ticket and replace him with Andrew Johnson. Now, if you look at who Andrew Johnson was in 1864 versus later as president its a remarkable , contrast and you feel some degree of empathy for lincoln having made such a bad decision. Because Andrew Johnson at the time, he was one of the poorest men ever to rise to the presidency owed everything he , had to the union and despite his racist sentiments and beliefs, he cared more but the he cared more about the union than anything else. So, when the first shots were fired on fort sumpter, all he cared about was breaking the confederacy and the best we to break everyo traitor in brutal fashion and to force civil rights upon them. So, johnson is the only southern senator to stay loyal to the union. He gives up a bombproof seat in the senate to take dangerous job as military governor of tess 1864, hisessee in rhetoric on some rides is more for leaning than Abraham Lincoln. He seemed like such a radical republic aside from being a border contribution, the south is more terrified about the idea of Andrew Johnson as president than ever have lincoln. And when Jefferson Davis is accused of plotting to kill Abraham Lincoln, he reminds people that would be insane because anybody who hears or listens to Andrew Johnson knows that would be a far worse situation for the south. Now, Andrew Johnson has the worst debut of any rights in history. He is completely hammered while being sworn in and giving his inaugural address. He is supposed to speak for 30 seconds or a minute, then put his hand on the bible and be sworn in. Instead it turns into a 70 minute drunken tirade in which he criticizes every member of the cabinet and pauses when he cannot room ever the name of the secretary of the navy. Poor lincolns head is buried in his hands in shame and then he proceeds to slobber all over the bible and he is too drunk to swear in the new senators so he asked some poor intern to do it. And im not sure legally you can do that. [laughter] then Abraham Lincoln walks side by side with him outside right before lincoln gives arguably one of the best speeches of his career and lincoln points out frederick douglass. Describes a man whose eyes are glazed over, stumbling with hatred and he is describing it wrong person but he does not realize Andrew Johnson is drunk. But he draws the conclusion that man is no friend of my race and we should thank the heavens is not president of the United States. Six weeks later lincoln is killed and Andrew Johnson becomes president and his views are not transformed when he becomes president s. His views are transformed when the civil wars over. And all of a sudden the best thing from his perspective for the union is to get the southern elected officials reintegrated back into congress and let the states deal with civil rights and so forth. He goes back to what he thinks are the best tactics. What is interesting about johnson is theres a plot to kill not just lincoln but johnson, the secretary of state seward and others. The first time the cabinet sees Andrew Johnson after the drunken tirade is when he shows up at the petersen house. He is told by one cabinet member he is making mary todd lakin uncomfortable needs to leave. Everybody knows that lakin is about to die and johnson is going to be president and by all accounts he should have been treated as president that moment that he was asked to leave because he was making the first lady uncomfortable. Storyason i said is the of two assassinations, it is not until the controversial election of 1876 you have an to end you have an aunt to reconstruction. So thats when you really start to get jim crow and some of the active segregation laws. Then fast forward to the Republican Convention of 1880 and a duel between Ulysses Grant for a third time and james blaine and all the delegates get tired of it. On the 30th ballot, someone shouts out James Garfields name. Garfield was there as a campaign chief and theres momentum that builds for garfield and he jumps up on stage and says i protest. , how can you give the nation to a man whos does not seek it . He gets it anyway. He throws on the ticket all them a man who embodies the spoils system, chester a arthur. But garfield was a man who is completely detached from party politics, who made a pledge he was born in a log cabin, had hid runaway slaves as a child. His big issues were universal education and suffrage and an to end the spoil system and the creation of a moder civil service. And we are supposed to get that vision but four months later he is shot by an Office Seeker who had met with Chester Arthur who writes in his letter of declaration that he killed garfield so that arthur could be president he expected to be rewarded as consul general in paris and obviously that didnt , happen. Arthur ends up having a somewhat respectable presidency in part because a mentally ill woman on the Upper East Side of manhattan starter snail mail trolling him with long letters telling him how loathesome he was. But that there was still hope for him. She described him in manners eerily reminiscent of the worst characters in the court of king henry 8th but kept telling him theres still hope and he shows up at her house on the Upper East Side. So we know as early as that you 1881 control the president , and the president might show up at your house. This meeting has profound impacts on him. The man benefited from the spoil system is up signing the pendleton act which creates the civil service. He did not work and they were embarrassed to tell people he did not work so they would create a facade of important stuff going on. For the civilh rights agenda we would have gotten with garfield. The one who is at the most unexpected and the biggest success is harry truman. In 1944, all the Democratic Party bosses knew that fdr was a dying man. You need to look no further than the fact that they cannot fathom the idea of Henry Wallace the incumbent Vice President ascending to the presidency , because they thought he was too liberal or a soviet seven thighs or or both. But they cared enough and recognize the seriousness of fdrs health to take a provincial politician from missouri who hadnt thought much about the world, who was a local machine character, and threw him on the ticket without thinking whether he could govern or lead, but he was the best shot at making sure wallace was not on the ticket and fdr did not care as long as whoever was tone own dust was thrown on the ticket with him did not prevent him from winning the election. Deep down he probably knew he was going to die. I think the question was timeline. I he thought he could power through, win the war, if the war ended before his term, he could resign and be the first secretary general of the united nations. During trumanys 82 days as Vice President he meets with fdr , twice, doesnt get a single intelligence briefing, does not meet a single foreign leader, does not know about the atomic bomb or yalta. He is out socializing. April 12, 1945, fdr dies and truman inherits the most overwhelming portfolio of crises of any president in history, with less preparation than any president in history. The battle of okinawa is at its heights, one of the fiercest military battles of all time. He gets briefed on the Manhattan Project and has to figure out what to do with this destructive weapon that may or may not work. Stalin is reneging on every promise from yalta. Churchill is perplexed and is not nowhere most of the countries are on a map. Spends several days in the map room literally getting smart on what has been happening with the war. Has to deal with the reality that he might have to move a million men from the european theater to asiapacific theater. Theres a massive bureaucratic battle between the armynavy that threatens the war effort. Yet in his first four months he makes some of the most important decisions in the history of our republic. Decisions that win the war, shape the postwar order and its a combination of truman stepping up to the job, and men like dean atchison and George Marshall the deciding the fate of the world dress on harry truman being successful and theres not enough time or they dont have the luxury of acting on the grief grief and the shock that harry truman is president. And they decide to make him successful. To trumans credit truman has to , listen to them. Not all president s listen. Millard fillmore takes the oath of office after Zachary Taylor dies, fires the entire cabinet and is left without cabinet heads for some time. Our current moment is not the first time we have had a lot of vacancies in cabinet. [laughter] when they tell truman leave asia to macarthur and focus on europe, he listened to them. Now, were going to move to questions shortly but i want to talk about the close calls because to me its fascinating. I found myself overwhelmingly frustrated writing this book because i dont understand why we didnt get the importance of figuring out president ial succession and never treated it with any degree of seriousness. Its takes three president s to be assassinated for us to decide its a good idea to protect the president. Used to let the white house be overrun with offers seekers and people who may or may not have been mentally ill and anybody had access to the president. Even by the time we start to protect the president , we dont really do it professionally. They basically use protection of the president as a patronage opportunity for their buddies from home. If i was a target i would not want my buddies from home protecting me i dont think they , would take a bullet for me. But the other thing that frustrated me the very first close call was James Madison who was on his deathed and Dolly Madison catches wind theyre discussing what to do in the senate. He makes a recovery but James Madison was instrumental in writing the constitution and nobody bothers to ask him what did you mean when you said the same shall devolve on the Vice President. Then Andrew Jackson is shot by man who believes he is the king of england. The gun is touching him so he assumes he has been shot. He is in shock. 1 120,000 chance of malfunctioning and he realized the gun malfunctioned and then beats the assailants with his cane. Nobody bothered to ask him, what did they mean by devolve to the president. So by the time William Henry drops Jess Harrison drops dead, the last founding father has been dead for four years and theres nobody to ask. I could sort of go through close call after close call but ill tell you just maybe three of my favorite stories. One is just me kind of constitutionally geeking out for a minute. So, what the constitution said in 1865 when lincoln was assassinated is that if theres a double vacancy, of the president and Vice President , than the president pro tempore is up as an acting president and the secretary stated as the Constitutional Authority to make that happen, and call a special election the following november. See you go back to the evening of april 14, 1855 in lincoln a shot. Andrew johnson wouldve been murdered had george not decided to get drunk at a bar nearby. Another part of the lake and murder conspiracy went into go kill William Seward the , secretary of state. And seaward was in his bed and he stabbed him repeatedly so seward on most died. Then what happens if theres no secretary of state to make the president pro tem the acting president and call a special election. Shockingly, the constitution is clear about this. Then the assistant secretary of state has the authority to do this. Who is the assistant secretary of state . It is frederick seward, the son of liam seward, who is nearly bludgeoned to death by the handle of the knife on the assassins way into the bedroom to stab him. So, had the lincoln murder conspiracy born fruition you could have had a situation there was no president , Vice President , no secretary of state or assistant secretary of state with the Constitutional Authority to make the president pro tem the acting president or call a special election. And thats not like wild conspiracy theories. That actually almost happened. Now, the two most interesting close calls i will tell you before we go to question and answer, i want to tell you the story of a woman and her purse and how she saved the new deal. Fdr is president elect, rifes in arrives in miami aboard the normal hall, vincent astors private yacht. Gives his first speech as president elect in a park in miami and is sitting back with buick in his motorcade and delivers the speech. An italian immigrant fires five shots in 15 seconds at him. The bullets whatever hit fdr except hundred pound woman was standing next to the assailant, auto plopped his 32 caliber and moved her purse from one arm to another and smacked his gun enough force to be able to thwart his aim. The bullets killed four people, including mayor chicago who was visiting but it spared fdrs life and saved the new deal. More markedly what happens if , the president elect dies in office . Interestingly the 20th amendment was ratified nine days to before. It said if there is a vacancy in the president elect, the Vice President elect takes the oath of office on inauguration day. Call is thet close suicide bomber who nearly killed jfk as president elect. We remember kennedys assassination, but how many of you know that he was nearly so but a suicide bomber before he tooking to the of office . Shockingly, none of you. A disgruntled postal worker Richard Pavlik stuffed his buick with enough dynamite to blow up an entire city block outside of kennedys home in west palm beach. He was ready to do it. But he caught a glimpse of john John Standing right next to kennedy and decided he would do it later. So he follows kennedy to church, the next day, fills up his pants with the same amount of dynamite. He is standing four feet from jfk as spread and as president elect outside with his hand in his pocket and on at the trigger. And had he done that it he would have one of kennedy, people at the church but then he caught a glimpse of children and decided decided to wait another day. So the book is filled with these crazy stories, and you would think that writing a book about eight president s dying in office and 19 who almost died and you would be left with a feeling of deep melancholy, but strangely i ended up feeling kind of optimistic about it. One, you realize our history is crazy. [laughter] currentou look at our political moment right now, the book is anchored around the eight abrupt transitions but covers a last vast breadth of American History and you look how nasty congress is today in 1850 a senator pulled a gun on another senator and tried to shoot him. Pretty nasty. Today they will treat at each other and call each other liars. Although there was the guy who body slammed somebody. But it doesnt compare to what we saw in the 1850s. I told you the example of impulsively annexing texas. In terms of constitutional crises, if you look at the history of president ial succession, probably one of the most sustained constitutional vulnerabilities that we have had in our republic. So, it is not that, like everybody else, i do not look at i do notoncern, look at today without concern, but it is helpful to get a good dose of history when reflecting. And i have just loved the last five and a half years spending my day focused on the future and innovation and all of my evening s digging into the past and the contrast between the two its so exciting. You get obsessed with it. I got stuck on the garfield to arthur chapter when my wife was pregnant with our second daughter and her middle name is garfield. [laughter] with that ill take your question. [applause] thank you. Fun story. He thats for sure. Thats for sure. Im wondering why the supreme apparently why the Supreme Court apparently did not more involved with these things in particular. The tyler case in 41 or at any point, say, prior to the point when the amendment makes things clear. We are dealing with where constitutional interpretation seems to be an issue. Why is that. A great question. In the case of tyler, they actually tried to seek out the insight of the chief justice but the chief justice hated henry clay and hated tyler so he , didnt want to get involved because he was going to make one of his enemies happy and so he abdicated responsibility. It is in the book. [laughter] so if the constitution is clear, that the duties and powers of the president devolve to the Vice President , regardless of what you call them can you spin out on what is , really at stake with what he what is the stake with whether he is called the acting president or president with all of the same powers . I understand theres a different image, but it seems ephemeral. Jared i think the reason it was so important to tyler, none of the others had to grapple with that. Issue, by all an accounts, by the time phil moore died and taylor ascended to the presidency. That means people accepted the tyler precedent in a tenyear period. Having read a lot about what tyler was thinking at the time and a lot of the documents from the era, the conclusion i came to was kind of twofold. The first was, it doesnt position you very well to be kind of an incumbent and the likely person to win the next election, and as i mentioned they all become obsessed with winning the election in their own right. So the idea of being president versus an acting president puts you in a difference position for the election of 1844. The other issue is the constitution talks about special elections in the context of acting president s. And i think tyler was worried that if he accepted the reality of being an acting president the assumption would be a special election would be called the following november. Everybody should take the tour around Lafayette Square on halloween because its reenacts vividly the events of 1865. Is it still true that no one has ever served two terms as Vice President and been elected president . [laughter] jared well, george h. W. Bush served two terms as reagans Vice President and he ended up being elected. So that would be the one actually and Martin Van Buren served as vicepresident. The vice presidency is not a path to the presidency if you look at it throughout history. But the other thing about you mentioned lafayette, the president pro tem at the time of lincolns assassination. Theres another interesting twist and piece to this. Andrew johnson, a month after ascending the presidency is on hi death bed and nearly dead and foster, the president pro tem is out west, trying to make nice with various native american groups and he gets a telegram saying mr. President pro tem you need to rush back to washington, the president is dying and he basically ignores it and goes on the next leg of his journey. So they telegram him again and say fine, if you will not come back to washington we need you to at least stay near a telegraph office. That happened. Sothat happened. , theres another Vice President who i think became a very formidable president and that was theodore roosevelt. In his own right. Did you agree with that . Jared but i argue in the book is that of all the accidental president s, theater roosevelt is the only one who likely would have become president anyway. Theres basically three reasons why people become Vice President at least in the history that i write about. One is theyre available. Nobody wants the job. 2, 2 and estate. And three, punishment. For Teddy Roosevelt it was punishment, the new york party bosses couldnt stand him. The was a complete pain in their whatever i cant say on cspan, [laughter] so they think they are exiling him to the political equivalent of l but by thrusting him on mckinley in the 1900 election. The Vice President hobart dies in office so theres this vacancy and what is interesting. Hobart one of the only Vice President in history who enjoyed a close and intimate relationship with the president because he did a lot of his financial planning. [laughter] it turns out that having your Financial Planner as your Vice President is convenient. But in the case of Teddy Roosevelt, the first reference i can find about heartbeats away from the presidency comes from mark hanna, one of achilles trusted confidantes. When Teddy Roosevelt hence up as way thet, and by the only but against Teddy Roosevelt as Vice President is Teddy Roosevelt as a delegate. Mark hannah says to mckinley, mr. President your only responsibility in the next four years is to live. And, of course mckinley is shot , and killed in september of 1901. Now, an interesting part of the story whenever i talk about accidental president s nearly dying in office, people love to say oh, the Teddy Roosevelt story when he is shot in the dutch and the bullet penetrates the speech and penetrates his skin, and he looks at it and declares im in expert taxidermist and i can survive an , hour before the wound becomes fatal and he gives the speech and goes to the hospital. But he was not president when that happened. He came back to run as a bull moose in 1912 to try to torpedo William Howard taft as the republican president. But tr nearly does die in office. So a year almost to the day after he ascends to the presidency, he is in pittsfield. And he is campaigning for the midterms, and a trolley slams into his carriage. And it kills his driver, his bodyguard, the first member of the secret service ever killed in the line of duty. And it wouldve killed Teddy Roosevelt as well but for a few inches of luck. He flies 30 feet, lance face down. His glasses are broken and he ends up having to get emergency surgery, not before threatening the driver of the trolley with a fist in the face and flashing his epic teeth. He ends up in a wheelchair for six weeks. So Teddy Roosevelt was the first roosevelt to be wheelchairbound while president. Not fdr. [inaudible question] joe biden just declared hes this week joe biden just declared hes running for , president. What do you think the chance of him becoming president . Jared ive learned im not a pollster. Ive also learned about predictions by the way. If you make them far enough in advance, you have the luxury of everybody forgetting if youre wrong and then you get to remind people that you are a genus if youre right. One year is not enough time to do that. What i will say, were in the longest period of time in history without a president dying in office. The previous longest period was George Washington to William Henry harrison. We are in the longest. Of without a president die in office we have the oldest president in history of the republic. And at least two of the serious contenders on the democratic side are in their 70s. And yet we are still treating this election of a Vice President like a political gimmick. So, i think the danger with how we think about vice presidency is the seriousness. The recklessness with which we choose Vice President s office Vice President s is obvious ised the recklessness bfuscatedated but o by [indiscernible] look at sarah palin in 2008. Weve literally learned nothing. I think its a terrible idea to let candidates choose who they run with because what it says is im against the ropes and i need 10 points in the polls. In this particular weaker chapter of the campaign which should have nothing to do with whether somebody can lead in a crisis. Followup question. I cannot believe that roosevelt would have truman as vp and not tell him about the Manhattan Project. Jared roosevelt didnt think about the Vice President. He was just trying to pummel through. He barely spent any time. He was either warm springs, georgia recovering or traveling. , it is interesting. I did the interviews i could for this book given that most , chapters of history, most people are dead. Tylers grandsons are very useful for stories and anecdotes about john taylor. I asked george h. W. Bush because of the number of interviews before he died. Kissinger, cheney and others. And they all have the same comment about the vice presidency. I asked to them about it in the context of fdr. Kissingers remark on this was amusing if fdr knew he was dying , he said and in denial, why would you want the person who is most likely to benefit from your desk, lingering around. Fdr didnt want to set eyes on truman. If you know youre dying and in denial, you dont want to look at the guy who is about to take over for you. You mentioned you would tell us about nixon and ford, so please do. Jared if im a revisionist and i want to be funny, i would say i got tired and i didnt want to do an extra chapter. It was a deliberate decision at the beginning because what i was captivated by my entire life is this idea is how is someone is not the voters choice, who nobody wants his president , how did they lead something thats not theirs when everyone misses their predecessor. The idea of death in office comes with a sense of deprival. You are depriving the voters of the person they chose. And whoever ascends to the presidency has to deal with the reality of the country in mourning. They feel an obligation to continue at least playing homage , to some elements of their predecessors policies. At nixon you look resigning in disgrace, ford was under no obligation to nixon by any stretch of the imagination except for maybe , pardoning him. It really feels different to me. I do talk about the nixon to ford transition. The first time the 25th amendment is put into practice is when Richard Nixon plucks gerald ford to replace spiro agnew as Vice President. And arent we glad he did. Because it was certainly needed. The interesting thing is you what think the 25th amendment would have been put into practice when reagan was shot. In 1981, it was not because , james baker and others around reagan, they didnt want to set the president making a determination as a cabinet that the president was unfit for office. Theres no evidence they reflected back on James Garfield being on his deathbed. For 80 days, or Woodrow Wilson and a stroke. But i do wonder if it was in the back of their minds. The only time the 25th amendment was ever due to the inability to present to discharge their duties, the only time its ever been put in practice is for colonoscopies. [laughter] seriously. Sorry, one more story while youre coming up to the microphone about ford. That Vice President cheney told me. He was deputy chief of staff for gerald ford. What people dont realize about ford, ford had two assassination attempt against them in the span of 35 days. When squeaky from fire to pointblank range and a gun malfunctioned. And 35 days he was giving a speech outside a hotel he comes down the elevator. Its one of those elevators that open vertically. Cheney talked about how the elevator door hit ford on the top of the head and cracked his goal open. He went back upstairs to get stitches, came downstairs and sarah taymor fired at him. A secret Service Agent got his trigger anden the prevent her from killing him. He described that as a bad day for the president. [laughter] this is kind of apropos of the question you said about ford. The question is, what is the process for selection or appointment of the Vice President of the accidental president . Jared you mean, what was the process by which . With nelsonnded up rockefeller as Vice President which was an accidental vice , president i guess you could say. So once the Vice President , the elected Vice President ascends to the presidency, what is the process for a new Vice President to be selected or appointed . Jared its the same. Its no different. The 25th amendment says the president of the United States gets to pick somebody they can dominate and then they go through an approval process in congress. Its the same process whether the accidental the vice , president ascends. If somebody ends up as an as accidental president as long as , it post 25th amendment, the Selection Process for replacing the Vice President is the same as if there was a president who became president based on the ballot box. Other questions . If not, i can tell more stories. [laughter] the stories really are endlessly incredible. I will tell you my favorite quote from the book. Most of the president s, most of the accidental president s went who ended up as president never spent much time thinking about it. They expected to be irrelevant. Teddy roosevelt spent his entire life thinking of being president. So when mckinley, when he finds a mckinley dies, he can hardly contain his enthusiasm for the idea that he is president. But he is conflicted. Yes this amazing quote where he says is a terrible thing to come into the presidency this way but , it would be far worse to be morbid about it. [laughter] im thinking truman would be in this category but are there any others where the Vice President who ascends to the presidency actually is politically aligned with, and a continuation of the policies of the former. You made the point often their they are being picked for the balance and for their differences, etc. Are there others who try to fulfill the aspirations . Jared the closest example i would say is Calvin Coolidge. The Harding Coolidge transition i think has the most comparison with our presentday moment. If you look at warren harding, its the most scandalous administration in history. You have the teapot dome scandal, a massive oil scandal. A huge scandal at the veterans bureau, and attorney general and Justice Department conflicted on complicit in everything from bootlegging, fight fixing, stock manipulation. There were suicides within the rank and fishy murderers. And fishy murderers. It was a nasty Justice Department and a very corrupt attorney general. Harding dies, and an enormously popular man and Calvin College is still the only accidental president to ascend to the presidency with less than a year to go before a president ial election. The election of 1924. So coolidge knows what the , Harding Administration was all terror he is the terrify the scandals are going to break on his watch. That the republicans will lose in and power will be handed to 1924 the democrats. Self reflective moment where he so he has a recognizes hes quite boring and a nonentity. Theres many stories about coolidges insignificant bit my favorite one is when hes at the hotel and its on fire and he still he needs to evacuate. But he says, im the Vice President. Then they say, okay, you can stay. [laughter] then they say Vice President of what . Of the United States. And he saysof the United States. And they say, you have to go. We thought that you are the Vice President of the hotel. So he takes the truth, that hes boring and again creates this image. So boring and insignificant that it couldnt possibly be complicit in the scandals. And it works. As silent cal. He does more engagement with the public than any president before him because you have the advent of broadcast radio. He goes into peoples living rooms in a way no president had before. To answer your question, im not sure he even needed to do that because the economy was booming to such a scale that americans were economically drunk on the idea of eskimo pies, consumer products, tabloids, good economic times. And they didnt care so much if the president was harding, Calvin Coolidge or Herbert Hoover until the economy completely crumbled. So to the extent that you had a , Vice President continue business as usual, Calvin Coolidge is probably the closest example. On that note, i was curious based on your research, which Vice President s exercised undue influence on policy. Such that the president might as well have been absent or nonexistent . In your opinion. Jared Teddy Roosevelt was the most annoying of all the Vice President s. Nobody could control him. Mckinley could not control the secretary of state and nobody could control him as Vice President. Theres a great story about him as a secretary of the navy where secretary assistant secretary of the navy. The secretary of the navy goes on a sixhour break. To get the equivalent of a spa treatment. Hes so worried about what Teddy Roosevelt might do in six hours that he instructs them not to take the country to war. [laughter] while hes getting back treatment, Teddy Roosevelt basically mobilizes the country for war in six hours. Whats interesting is, beginning with Teddy Roosevelt, every one of the accidental president s gets elected in their own right. None of the ones that came before do. Then you have way more reelections as president in the post1900s than in the period before. I attribute a lot of that to the fact that foreignpolicy plays a more pronounced role. The president exerts an enormous amount of influence on Foreign Policy. If you look at to answer your question, the Vice President s that have exerted the most influence are the last 34 Vice President s. A lot of played pronounced foreignpolicy roles. Other questions . Tell another story. Jared tell another story. Wow. I will have to pull from the reservoir. I will share a personal story about the writing process. It was tricky because i had a day job also. I really wanted to do this in a way that i got my hands on proper archival research. Every time i went to write a new chapter, i went through the same emotional volatility, where i determined i couldnt do it. There was nothing new to write and i felt the challenge was daunting. And i decided with each chapter to approach it like i was playing the accidental president in a plane. So i would read these assessments of their personality. Their letters. And i would readtheir letters. I would try to sort of get in their head. I got really stuck in Andrew Johnsons head and it was a very disturbing experience. [laughter] because i really dont like him. But its interesting. When you encounter disagreement in the scholarship, or disagreement in the history. If you can sort of get yourself to imagine what it would have been like to be that particular person. You can begin to make or at least form an opinion about what they might have done. That was a fun process which was like playing the accidental president s in a play at least , for the duration of writing it. Yes, please. Andrew johnson was one of the hardest president s to be impeached. They tried several times. Why was congress so reluctant to impeach him . Jared thats a great question and ultimately, he does get impeached. Whats interesting about Andrew Johnson, when people talk about what a catastrophe was. They also point out that he was impeached. There are many reasons to critique Andrew Johnson. The ironies that the thing he was impeached for is violation of the tenure of office act which was later deemed unconstitutional. I think it trivializes the failings and the catastrophe of Andrew Johnson when we focus on impeachment. Instead we should focus on the fact that when he talks about North Carolina stated makes no , he makes no mention of civil rights. He gives amnesty to every trade or. He allows the Vice President of the confederacy, alexander stephens, to be reelected congress. Into congress. Those are the reasons to criticize Andrew Johnson. In terms of impeachment, the threshold was pretty high. I think whats interesting is impeachment historically has always been used as a political tool. The only time you have serious impeachment proceedings, the if they were allowed to play out would have resulted in the impeachment of the president , was Richard Nixon. That is the only time worked is not really take a political flavor. But the first impeachment proceedings against the president were against john tyler and theyre totally politically motivated. The proceedings against Andrew Johnson are politically motivated by radical republicans. When johnson ascended to the presidency, he thought he was one of them. Because of his rhetoric on civil rights and punishment of trey taurus. When the war ended nothing like they found out he was nothing like them. Theyre basically trying to get him on a technicality. The difficulty impeaching him in , some respects, reflected a lack of comfort in the house of representatives at the time. The idea of impeachment sort of taking on a political flavor. He does get impeached and narrowly escaped conviction by a single vote. [inaudible] so, on lbj lbj is one of those , where you write it and you think what on earth can i write that robert caro has not written . This is whats amazing about history. Theres plenty to capture and write about. Theres still a lot of unsolved mysteries. There are a lot of missing puzzle pieces in the reconstruction of our history. What i focused on with lbj was i really believed he was either going to have to resign as Vice President or be kicked off the ticket the week after kennedy was assassinated. The reason is because he was engulfed in a massive scandal with a man named bobby baker who was an aide of his in the senate. He was under investigation. What i learned talking to tom brokaw who remembered that quite well was that both cbs and time life had the goods on lbj. They had the full dossier and they were ready to go public with it. And when kennedy was assassinated, they made a deliberate decision to put it back in the box. Because the country had been thisbecause the country had been is really important through such , a dramatic transition where you cannot have a situation where kennedy was assassinated, skala breaks, and at the height of the cold war, the new president has to resign. Of the United States has to resign. Remember, theres no 25th amendment. So theres no provision for replacing the Vice President. They had flipped the speaker. In the president pro tem. You would have gone to the speaker for the acting president and the secretary of state would have had to schedule a special election. So this is an interesting sort of ethical issue to debate in the context of history. Im sorry . I should know the name so, the country had been through this dramatic transition. What was also fascinating is we all know the story of how Bobby Kennedy heated lbj. What was clear to the kennedys when they took that final trip to texas was that lbj didnt have the sway in texas that they thought he did. So even if he was not willing to resign you can speculate they would have found a way to rotate him off the ticket. The conventional wisdom about jfk and lbj is if kennedy is not assassinated, you dont get the Civil Rights Act of 1964 and maybe not the subsequent acts either. I dont subscribe to that the that view. I subscribe to the view that i because i think the kennedys were prepared to Pay Lip Service to civil rights but not prepared to take electoral risks in favor of civil rights. The chart speculate after even if they had won reelection. That is a big if. With vietnam, i think the reputationf kennedys have reconstructed a narrative that correctly settles lbj with responsibility for vietnam but absolves kennedy of far too much responsibility. Kennedy doubles the number of advisors, more than doubles the number of the foreign assistance budget. His tacit support for a coup against the south vietnamese president. Often times, people will point to some of the advisors coming home, which was later proven to be part of a normal troop rotation. I do not think kennedy was is predisposed to go down the storm escalation path, but everyone was scared of the big red arrow and they may have found themselves going to have found themselves going down the same slippery slope. People i interviewed, incredibly divided on this. It is a big game of maybe yes, maybe no. My personal view is there would have been some form of escalation, some form under kennedy as well. [indiscernible] could you comment on cheneys vice presidency . Look at dickou cheneys background, he has one of the most extraordinary records of any man who ascended to the vice presidency. His before Vice President after Vice President is a very different narrative. Wase is no doubt that he one of the most influential Vice President in history, particularly in the first term, but i also think you see the limits of the vice presidency by evaluating his second term as vp. Thank you. [applause] history bookshelf features the countrys bestknown American History writers of the past decade talking about their books. You can watch our weekly series every saturday at 4 00 p. M. Eastern on American History tv on cspan3. President ek, Vice Mike Pence and democratic Vice President ial nominee Kamala Harris will debate. This sunday, American History tv looks back to 1984 when incumbent Vice President george h. W. Bush and Geraldine Ferraro answered questions from a panel of journalists. Here is a preview. I am surprised. I think i just heard ms. Ferrero say she would do away with all covert action. That has very serious ramifications that the intelligence ramifications that the Intelligence Community knows. I will leave that when there. Let me help you with the difference between iran and the embassy in lebanon. Foreign were held by a government. In lebanon, you had a wanton terrorist action or the government opposed it. We went to lebanon to give peace a chance, to stop the bombing of civilians in beirut, to remove 13,000 terrorists. We did. We saw the formation of a government of reconciliation and to someone suggest that these men died in shame, they better not tell the parents of those young remains marines. They give peace a chance and our allies were with us. Congresswoman ferrero. Resent Vice President push it that you have to teach me Foreign Policy. I have been a member of congress were six years. I was there when the embassy was held hostage in iran and i have seen what is happened in the past several months, 17 months of your administration. Please do not categorize my answers either. Leave the interpretation to the American People watching this debate, and let me say further that no one has ever said those young men who were killed to the negligence of this administration and others ever died in shame. Is 19 who was a child who or 20 years old whenever say that about the loss of anyone elses child. Thistch the full debate sunday at 6 30 p. M. Eastern, 3 30 pacific on American History tv. Ii, a secretld war nazi program systematically murdered an estimated 250 1000 people with mental and physical disabilities. Most were native born germans. Many were children. Of the Holocaust Museum details the atrocities. She focuses on an institute in germany, one of several facilities used for the mass murder of individuals nazis viewed as undesirable. The National World War Ii Museum in new orleans hosted this online discussion and provided the video. Ladies and gentlemen, welcome. I am jason from the National World War Ii Museum institute for the study of war and democracy. Appreciating your joining us