My name is Katie Willard and im part of the event staff here at politics and prose. Before we begin, i would like to go over a few quick announcements. First, please silence your cellphones and other noise making devices. Not only is it courteous to the author, but we are also on cspan tonight. So you do not want to be the person whose phone goes off on cspan. Secondly, during our question and answer portion, in the interest of our video and audio recording, if you could come up to the microphone right here by the white pillar. That wave, we can hear your questions and engage in a nice discussion afterwards. And lastly, once everything is done, if you could please pull up your chairs and place them against something solid. Our staff, as in me, would greatly appreciate that. Tonight, i am pleased to introduce jared cohen to politics and prose. Cohen is the founder and ceo of jigsaw alphabet ink as well as an adjunct senior fellow at the council of foreign relations. He has written several books on his own including, the children of jihad. One of the great lessons of american politics that ive learned is the tale of two brothers. One went off to sea and one became Vice President. Neither was heard from ever again. However, in rare cases, the Vice President is not relegated to obscurity. Namely, when the president , the previous president , dies. In his newest New York Times bestselling book, accidental president s, cohen examines legacies of these eight men, john tyler, millard fillmore, Andrew Johnson, Chester Arthur, theodore roosevelt, Calvin Coolidge, harry truman and Lyndon Johnson, who descended to the presidency because of these unfortunate circumstances. Becoming president under these circumstances is often a thankless task, and many of these men have disappointed rather than reassured. Although several have exceeded expectations. Cohen delves into the implications of this system of succession and argues this limited reading of the constitution, one of which Many Americans take for granted, may not be the only way to handle succession. Walter isaacson, author of leonardo da vinci, among other books, writes Jarrett Cohen treats us to some of the most colorful and momentous episodes in our history. He reveals the historic importance of some lesser known leaders and highlights the greatness of t. R. , 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] thank you all very much for having me. I cant think of a better place to talk about this book than this incredible bookstore. When i lived in d. C. It was my absolute favorite place to be and i have not been here in sometime. I just love the backdrop of all of these books here tonight. I think the place that i want to start is why i wrote this book. I think its really important context for somebody who spent the last eight years every single day as a technology ceo. Before that, for years working in Foreign Policy. So people ask me, when i tell people im writing a book, they ask if its a book about cyber war. No. Is it a book about Foreign Policy . No. They say what is it about . I said its about that president s and its confusing to them. Its confusing to anybody unless you grew up with me. When i was eight years old, my parents brought me a Childrens Book called the buck stops here. It was one of these wonderful rhyming books. A different page for each president. As my parents read to me at night trying to transform me into a precocious child, they did not realize they would have to have eight different conversations with me about death. My poor parents, it was bad enough that they did not know who mckinley was, they now had to explain why mckinley was killed over in this cartoon like picture. When you are an eight year old and have to deal with these very heavy topics like death and assassination, my parents did not just quite figure out what they had gotten themselves into. The interest sustained overtime and, when oliver stone came with his movie in 1992 about kennedys assassination, i decided i was going to solve the kennedy assassination. I annexed one of the rooms in our house and turned it into the committee room. I put pictures and xerox copies of the zapper footage across the halls with yarn anthem tack from one picture to another. I had all sorts of wild conspiracy theories, none of which i remember, and that is quite deliberate. So the obsession and fascination got into president ial collecting and memorabilia. I have a strange sub collection of president ial locks of hair, which is weird until you see it. Its quite fascinating. But this really has been a passion of mine, trust me, it really is something. This has been in interest my tire life. I spend all day thinking about innovation in the future, but i had this growing itch to sort of dig in to the past. When my wife is pregnant with our eldest daughter, who is now five years old, i needed a nesting project because i was kind of annoying everybody. I decided im finally going to resurrect this childhood interest. Im going to 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. This history, in addition to being something im deeply passionate about, it really resonates with me on so many Different Levels because we are in a time where everybody is looking at leadership qualities. We have a fascination with politics. We have 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 that there were eight. What im going to do today, im not going to go through every single one of them because i have to leave you with some incentive to by the book. But im going to talk to you about the very first time it happened. Im going to share with you what i think was the biggest catastrophe of the accidental transitions. Im going to share with you who i think was the biggest and most unexpected success and why. And then, im going to talk you through some of the close calls. In addition to the eight president s who died in office, you had another 19 who nearly died in office. And of those 19 who nearly died in office, i should remind you that there are eight that die in office, six of those eight president s who send it to the presidency upon the death of their predecessor also nearly died in office. Mostly through assassination attempts. We will get into that as well, but i just want to whet your appetite a little bit. Lets go back to the framers of the constitution who did not want a Vice President , who did not think much about the vice presidency, they viewed it as an electoral mechanism. Naturally, it was not something they had thought about. They thought a bit about president ial succession, but if you look at article two in the constitution, what it says is in the event of the death of a president or inability to discharge duties of the set office, the same shell devolve on the Vice President. The constitution is completely clear that in the case of the vacancy of a presidency, the Vice President acts as president and discharges those duties. The constitution is not clear about whether the Vice President becomes the president. 1840, the famous catchphrase, tipping canoe and tyler to, propels William Harris into the white house. The wigs are so happy that they finally got a president , but he dies 30 days later. Despite the fact that history tells us he died of pneumonia, it was later proven that bed sewer systems around the white house was likely responsible for his death. By the way, james pokes death and zachary taylors death later. We will save that for a more gruesome lecture. John tyler, who was thrown on the ticket even though he was basically a democrat, because the wage needed to win virginia and needed somebody who would give a knot to states rights, he skips town after inauguration because he is prepared to accept the realities of how irrelevant the Vice President is. When a messenger shows up at his house in the middle of the night delivering the telegram that the president is bid, john tyler, who has infect studied the constitution, understands the fight that is about to ensue. He interprets the constitution as he is now the president and he knows the cabinet is going to disagree and he Knows Congress is going to disagree. So he races back in very dramatic fashion, a combination of horse and carriage, boat and train, and he proceeds receipts to get into a fight with the cabinet. He then spends the first three months of his presidency arguing with congress about whether hes the acting president or the president. Ultimately, he wins that battle even though people sent him mail for the rest of his presidency addressed to him as Vice President , which he returns on opened. Or as acting president , which he also returns an open, but he sets that president. Whats interesting is you dont have a mechanism for replacing the Vice President of the United States until the 25th amendment is ratified in 1967. So you have john tyler as the nations first accidental president. He set a precedent that he is now president. That precedent carries all the way through lbj. Lbj becomes precedent upon the death of john f. Kennedy based on a precedent in 1841 by john tyler. Weve never had a situation where a president has died in office and the 25th amendment has formally made the president. That only happens with nixon and ford. Im sure during the q as session, someone will ask me why i did not include nixon and ford as a separate chapter. At some point, i will beat you to the punch and answer that question. The reason the vacancy of the vice presidency is important is john taylor is a disaster for the week party because, again, hes basically a democrat. He does not subscribe to the whip 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. He takes the country in a completely different direction. He was completely ostracized from the administration. He had no relationship with the predecessor. He did not have a good sense of whats happening in the administration that he was part of. At least for him, the administration was only 30 days. So tyler, as he sort of subverts the whig, most notably with the vetoing of to national banks, he gets ex communicated from the whig party. John tyler, the nations first accidental president , becomes a 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 the election in 1844, since he cannot run as a whig and the democrats dont want him anyway because they are mad at him for running as a whig, is to change the political discourse and covertly annex texas. If we look at the impulsiveness and erratic behavior of our current president , i remind you that john tyler, in a moment of political rage and impulsiveness, decided to covertly annex texas which precipitated war with mexico which brought us one step closer to the civil war. Going back to the vacancy in the vice presidency, this is important because on february 28th, 1844, john tyler is sailing on the potomac aboard the uss princeton. Its a gala on the potomac aboard this one nautical wonder to celebrate American Naval prowess and that he was on the verge of texas annexation. They fire this gun called the peacemaker toward mount vernon in tribute to the great George Washington and the gun explodes. It kills the secretary of state. It kills the secretary of the navy. It kills multiple ambassadors and ministers. It kills john tylers favorite slave whose mother was compensated 200 dollars. It kills a number of senators and members of congress. It 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 way toward president , but who was more interested in the captain son. As they heard the explosion, they came up to the deck. Her name was julia garner. 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 and carries her down the gang plight. She is startled and wakes up and does not realize that its the president carrying her. You read about this in a letter that she later writes. John tyler writes that had she not them off the gangplank, they both would have died. He almost died a second time. He ends up marrying her and they have a Children Together on top of the seven that he already had. And fun fact, john tyler, who was born during the administration of George Washington, has two grandsons who are still alive. How is that possible . Todd 15 fathered a child in his seventies and then that child fathered two children in his seventies who are now in their mid and late 90s. That is the story of john tylers offspring. Fun fact, use another 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. 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 Andrew Johnson, Chester Arthur, Teddy Roosevelt, Calvin Coolidge, harry truman and Lyndon Johnson very well could have descended to the role of acting president instead of president. Thats the story of our first accidental president and what happened. Now, what i want to do is juxtaposed 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 that, 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 to a blueprint, im tempted to say we navigated through pretty well and we got pretty lucky. Its a remarkable story. I could almost say that except for the fact that, when Abraham Lincoln died, we got Andrew Johnson. We were supposed to get Abraham Lincolns vision of reconstruction. Instead, the bullet of john wilts bluetooth gives us Andrew Johnson. A man born racist. A man died racist. The last president to own slaves. A man who did not emancipated own slaves until seven months after the emancipation proclamation. A man who, as president , ended up resurrecting almost every old element of the confederacy, paving the way for the black codes, which paved the way for the jim crow laws, which of course gave us segregation. Now, if i look at the story of post of civil rights and post civil war america, to me it can be described, in some respects, as a story of two president ial assassinations beginning with Abraham Lincoln and ending with james garfield. So when i set out to write the chapter about lincoln and Andrew Johnson, you think to yourself what can i write that all the great scholars have been written about this sort of summit moment in history. I decided what i wanted to do was vindicate the one state on lincolns record, which is putting Andrew Johnson a heartbeat away from the presidency. Back then, the president did not choose their running mate. This was such an important moment and lincoln was so sure he was going to lose the election in 1864, that he engaged in a massive intrigue outside of his circle to move sanibel hamilton off the ticket and replace him with Andrew Johnson. If you look at who Andrew Johnson was in 1864 versus who he was 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. He owed everything he had to the union. Despite his racist sentiments and beliefs, he cared more about the union than anything else. When the first shots were fired on fort some dirt, all he cared about was breaking the confederacy so he could reunite the union. The best way to break the confederacy was to punish every trader in a brutal fashion and to force civil rights upon them. Johnson is the only southern senator to stay loyal to the union. He gives up abram proof seat in the senate to take a very dangerous job as military governor of tennessee. And in 1864, his rhetoric on civil rights is more forward leaning than even Abraham Lincoln. His rhetoric on punishment of traders is even more forward leaning and aggressive than Abraham Lincoln. He is so feared by the south because he seems like such a radical republican, despite being a war democrat from a border state, that the south is so much more terrified about the idea of Andrew Johnson as president than Abraham Lincoln. When Jefferson Davis is accused of plotting to kill Abraham Lincoln, he reminds people that that would be insane because anybody who hears or listens to Andrew Johnson would know that would be a far worse situation for the south. Andrew johnson has the worst debut of any Vice President in history. He is completely hammered while being sworn in and giving his inaugural address. He supposed to speak for 30 seconds and maybe a minute at most, then put his hand on the bible and sworn in. Instead, it turns into a 17 minute drunken tirade in which he criticizes every member of the cabinet. He pauses when he cant remember the name of the secretary of the navy and has to ask somebody. Port Abraham Lincoln head is buried in his hands in shame. Then he proceeds to slobber all over the bible and hes too drunk to swear in the new senators, so he asks some poor equivalent of an intern to do it. Im not sure illegally you can do that. So than 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, who had the time is the most famous sex slave in the country. Douglas in his autobiography describes a mans eyes glazed over, sort of stumbling with hatred. When you realize is hes describing a drunk person. He does not realize that Andrew Johnson is drunk, but he draws to conclusions. One, that man is no friend of my rice. And to, we should thank the heavens that hes not the president of the United States. Of course, six weeks later, if lincoln is killed and Andrew Johnson becomes president. His views are not transformed when he becomes president. His views are transformed when the civil war is over. 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, of course, as a plot. The first time that the cabinet sees Andrew Johnson after his drunken tirade is when he shows up at the petersen house. Hes told by one of the cabinet members that hes making Mary Todd Lincoln uncomfortable and needs to leave. Everybody knows lincoln is about to die and that Andrew Johnson is going to be president. By all accounts, he should have been treated as president at that moment, but he was asked to leave because he was making the first lady uncomfortable. The reason i say its the story of two assassinations is its not until the controversial election of 1876 that you have an end to reconstruction. Thats when you really start to get jim crow and some of the active segregation laws. Fast forward to the Republican Convention of 1880 and its really a duel between ulysses as current going for a non consecutive third term and james blane. Everybody, all the delegates get tired of it. On the 30 something ballots, someone yells out james garfields name. Barr field was there as the campaign chief for somebody who is running third or fourth in the delegate count. All of a sudden, theres momentum that builds for garfield and eventually he gets the nomination. He jumps up on stage and says i protest. How can you give the nomination to a man who does not seek it . He ends up with it anyway. He throws on to the ticket, Chester Arthur, a man who embodies all the elements of the spoils system. He was completely detached from Party Politics and was born in a log cabin. He had runaway slaves as a child. His big issues were universal education and universal suffrage. As well as in and to the spoil system and the creation of modern civil servants. We were supposed to get that vision, but four months into his presidency, he is shot by an office secret who had met with Chester Arthur and writes in his letter of declaration that he killed garfield so that arthur could be president and expected to be rewarded as counsel general in paris. Obviously, that did not happen. Arthur ends up having a somewhat respectable presidency in part because a mentally ill woman on the Upper East Side of manhattan started snail mail trolling him describing how loathsome he was. She described in manners eerily reminiscent of the worst characters in the court of king henry the eighth, but told him there was still hope. He gets in his president ial carriage and shows up at her house in the Upper East Side. We know is early as 1881, that you control the president and the president might show up at your house. So this meeting has a profound impact on him. Its not the sole reason, but becomes one of these reasons why a man who embodies the spa system ends up signing the pendleton act which creates the modernday civil service. Arthur was a mediocre man who did not like working. His aides would walk around with a basket of important looking documents because he literally did not work and they were embarrassed to tell people he did not work. So they literally would create this facade of important stuff going on. So he did not push for the civil rights agenda that we would have gotten with garfield. The one whos the most unexpected, and i would say the biggest success, is harry truman. The reason i say this is, in 1944, all the Democratic Party bosses knew fdr was a dying man. You need to look no further than the fact that they could not fathom the idea of henry wallace, the incumbent Vice President , ascending to the presidency because they thought he was too liberal or they thought he was a soviet sympathizer or both. They cared enough and recognize the seriousness of fdrs help enough to take essentially a provincial politician from a zuri who had not thought much about the world, who was kind of a local machine character, and threw him on the ticket without thinking about whether he could govern or lead. But he was the best shot and making sure wallace was not on the ticket. Fdr did not really care as long as whoever 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 think he thought he could power through, when the war. If the war ended before his term, he could resign and be the first secretary general of the united nations. During trumans 82 days as Vice President , he meets with fdr twice. He does not get a single intelligence briefing. It does not meet a single foreign leader. Hes not briefed on the atomic bomb. Hes not read into the happenings of the war. Hes basically out socializing. April 12th, 1945, fdr takes his last breath. Truman inherits probably one of the most overwhelming portfolios of crises of any president in history with less preparation than any president in history. The battle of okinawa is a literally at its height. Its one of the fiercest military battles of alltime. He gets briefed on the Manhattan Project and has to figure out what is he going to do with this destructive weapon that may or may not work. Stalin is reneging on every single one of his promises from yalta. Churchill is complex. He does not know where a lot of these countries are on a map. He spends his first several days on in the map room literally getting smart on what has been happening during the war. He has to deal with the reality that he may have to move 1 million man from the european theater to the Asian Pacific theater. There is a massive bureaucratic battle between the army in the navy that threatens the entire war effort. And yet, in his first four months, he makes some of the most important decisions in the history of our republic. Decisions that when the war, that shaped the post war order. I argue that its a combination of truth and stepping up to the job and men like the unhatched sun and George Marshall deciding that the fate of the world rests on harry truman being successful. As much as they may misses the great fdr, there is not enough time, or they dont have the luxury of acting on the grief and the shock that harry truman is president. They decided to make him successful. To trumans credit, truman has to listen to them. Not all president s listen. Phil more fires the entire cabinet after taking office. Hes left with a cabinet heads for sometime. Again, our current moment is not the first time weve had a lot of vacancies in the cabinet. When they tell truman leave asia to mcarthur and focus on europe, we listen to them. We are going to move to question shortly, but i do want to talk a little bit about the close calls because to me it is 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 why we never treated it with any degree of seriousness. It takes three president s to be assassinated for us to decide that its a good idea to protect the president. We used to literally just let the white house be overrun with Office Seekers and people who may or may not have been mentally ill and anybody had access to the president. To the extent that, even by the time that we start to protect the president , we dont really do it. I would not want my buddies from home protecting me if i was a target. As much as i think they like me, i do not think that would take a bullet for me. The other thing that frustrated me is the very first close call was James Madison, who was basically on his deathbed as president and Dolly Madison catches wind that they are beginning succession proceedings on what to do in the senate. Im talking about what happens with Vice President gary. She writes a note exaggerating her husbands recovery. Eventually does make a recovery, but James Madison was instrumental in writing the constitution and nobody bothers him to ask him what did you mean when you said the same shell devolve on the Vice President . Then Andrew Jackson is shot at point blank by a man who believes he is the king of england. The gun is literally touching him. He assumes hes been shot. Hes sort of in shock. Well the gun had a one in 125,000 chance in to not work. It malfunctions any proceeds to beat him with his cane. What do they mean by devolve to the Vice President . By the time the last founding father James Madison has been dead for four years and theres nobody to ask. I could sort of go through close call after close call after close call, but i will tell you just maybe three of my favorite stories. One is just me kind of constitutionally geeking out for a minute. Whats the constitution said in 1865 when lincoln was assassinated is that if there is a double vacancy in the president and Vice President , then the president ends up as an acting president and the secretary of state has the Constitutional Authority to make that happen and call a special election for the following november. So you go back to the evening of april 14th, 1865, lincoln is shot, Andrew Johnson would have been murdered had george not decided to get drunk at a bar nearby and another part of the lincoln murder conspiracy went in to go kill william seward, who was the secretary of state. Sue word was in his bed and he stabs him repeatedly. Seward almost died. So then what happens if theres no secretary of state to make the president and call a special election . Shockingly, the constitution is pretty clear about this. Then the assistant secretary state has the authority to do this. Whos the assistant secretary of state . Its frederik stewart, the son of william stored, whos nearly bludgeoned to death by the handle of the gun and knife on the assassins way into William Sewards bedroom to stab him. Had the lincoln murder conspiracy born fruition, you couldve had a situation where there was no president , there was no Vice President , and there was no secretary of state or assistant secretary of state with the Constitutional Authority to make the president wrote and the acting president or call a special election. Thats not like what conspiracy theories, that actually almost happened. Now, the two most interesting close and ill tell you really quickly before we go to question and answers. I want to tell you a story about a woman in her purse, and how she saved a new deal. Fdr was president elect he arrives in miami on board of a ship in a private yacht. And gives his first speech as president elected, in a part in miami. And they had a three quart motor gate, to give a speech, in the italian fired shots in 15 seconds at him. Two bullets wouldve hit fdr except 100 pound women, standing across the assailants, saw him pull up his 32 caliber, moves your purse from one arm to the, other and smacks is gun. With enough force, to be able to afford, isnt he killed four people including the mayor of chicago who is visiting. But spared fdrs lives and saved a new deal. Now, a remarkably, what happens if the president alike dyson office . Interestingly the 20th amendment was ratified nine days before, and among other things there is a vacancy in the president that takes the oval office on inauguration day. And the last post call, ill tell you before we go to question and answer, is the suicide bomber who nearly killed jfk as president. Now, we remember kennedys assessing a, should about how many of you buy show of hand know that he was nearly killed by a suicide bomber, before he ever took the oath of office . Shockingly, none of you. A disgruntled man stuffed his if you look with enough dynamite to blow up an entire sort of block outside of city home, west palm beach. And ended up, he was ready to do, it but then he caught a glimpse of john johnson standing right next to kennedy, and decided he would do it later. So he follows kennedy to charge, the next day. Fills up his pants with the same amount of dynamite, is standing four feet from jfk as president elect, outside in his pocket and hes ready to pull. How do you dont he wouldve blown up himself, can any, unaware of people in a church, but he caught a glimpse of serve children decided he would wait another day to do it. So the book is filled with these sort of 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 for the feeling of deep melancholy. But, strangely, kind up feeling kind of optimistic about it. One, and you realize what our history is really crazy. And if you look at our current political moment, right now, the book is anchored around these transitions but theyve covered a wide range of american history. And you look at how nice the congress is today, while in 1850 a senator pulled a gun and another senator and tried to shoot, and that was pretty nasty. Its like today, maybe they will tweet at each, other calling each other liars, but it doesnt get much worse than that. Other than the guy who body slammed somebody. Light, it doesnt compared to what we saw in 1850. See, i told you that the example of impulsively in extreme texas, in terms of constitutional crises, if you look at the history of president ial succession its probably one of the most sustained constitutional vulnerabilities that weve had in our republic. So, its not like everybody else i dont look at today with some concern, but it is helpful to get a good dose of history when reflecting on the president. And i tell, you i have just loved the last five and a half years, spending my day focused on the future and innovation, and all of my evenings kind of digging into the past. And the contrast between the two is so exciting. You get really obsessed with it. I got stuck on the guard field arthur chapter, when my wife was pregnant with her second daughter. It until her middle name is garfield. And with that, ill take your questions. [applause] thank you. Find story, thats for sure. Im wondering why the Supreme Court apparently didnt get more involved in many of these things, in particular, the tyler case in 41. Or really at any points prior to the point when the amendment kind of made things clear. We are dealing with some constitutional interpretation why is that . So, thats a great question. In the case of tyler, they actually tried to seek out the insides of the chief justice. But the chief justice, henry clay, hated tyler. So he didnt get involved because he was gonna make one of his enemies happy where is the other not. So he abdicated responsibility. Its in the book. So if the constitution is clear that the duties and powers of the president devolve to the Vice President for goes when you colin, can you spin out on whats really at stake, whether hes called the active president , or the president , if he has all of the same powers . I understand there is a different image, but it seems a little ephemeral, and people perceive it as mutually different. Yes so i think the reason it was so important, i can answer this by talking about why was so important to tyler. The others had to grapple with that, and by all accounts it was not an issue, at all by the time taylor died in office in feel more. So, that means, people accepted the tiger. Even in a tenyear period. Having read a lot about why tyler was thinking a lot of the, time in a lot of the documents from the era the conclusion that i came to was kind of twofold. The first was, it doesnt position you very well to be kind of an incumbent, the likely person to win the next election. And as i mentioned, they all became obsessed with winning the election in their own right. So the idea of being president versus being an active president puts you in a different position, for the election of 1844. But the other issue is the constitution talks a lot about special elections, in the context of acting president. And i think tyler was worried that if he accepted the reality of being an active president , and then the assumption with the special election would be called the following november. Everybody should always take the tour around around halloween, because iran acts vividly the events of april 1865. Is it still true, that no one has ever served two terms as Vice President , and been elected president . Well, george h. W. Bush served two terms as reagans Vice President , and he ended up being elected. So that would be the one, and actually another one served as Vice President before. But the vice presidency is not a path to the presidency. If you just look at it throughout history. But the other thing, you mentioned Lafayette Foster who is the president pro tem in term when there was kennedys assassination. It was a twisted piece of this. A month after sending the presidency, he is on his deathbed, and nearly dead. And foster, who is your president pro tem is out west trying to make nice with sort of various need american groups, and he gets a telegram saying mister president pro tem you need to come back to washington, the president is dying. Thank you basically ignores, it and goes on the next leg of his journey. So they telegram again and say fine if you want come back to washington, we need you to at least jaded the a telegram office. So that happened. Yeah, theres another vice who i think became a very formidable president , and that was theodore roosevelt, in his own right. Did you agree with that . So when i arguing the book is that out of all the accidental president s, theater roosevelt is the only one who wouldve become president anyway. And theres basically few reasons why they would become president of the reason i warned iran. About one it would be available, because no one wants the work. Or when a state, or constituency. Or as a punishment. In the case of Teddy Roosevelt, it was a punishment. The new york party bosses couldnt stand him he was a complete pin and whatever i can say on cspan, and so the thing that they are exile and came to the political equivalent of alberta, by thrusting him on mckinley, in the 1900 election. Now, the vice oh guard dies in office, in the vacancy. And whats interesting about him is that hes one of the only Vice President s in history that enjoyed a really close and intimate relationship with the president , because he did a lot of his financial planning. It turns out that having your financial fair or as your Vice President is convenient. But in the case of Teddy Roosevelt, its interesting, is their first reference that i can find about heartbeats away from the presidency, comes from mark hanna. Who was one of thes most trusted confidants. And Teddy Roosevelt ends up as Teddy Roosevelt, by the way, the only vote against it is Teddy Roosevelt. As a delegate. Mark hanna says to mckinley, mister president , you are only responsibility in the next four years is to live. And of course, mckinley shot and killed in september of 1901. Now, an interesting part of the story whenever i talk about accidental president s, who themselves nearly died in office. People love to say on the Teddy Roosevelt story, when he shot the bullet penetrates the speech, and penetrates his skin. And he looks at it in the clear as i am an expert taxidermists and i can survive an hour before the wound becomes fatal, and he gives a speech, and go to the hospital. But he wasnt president when that happened, that when he came back to run as a united, 12 to try to torpedo taft as the republican president. But, pr nearly does die in office. So a year almost to the day, after he incense to the presidency, he is in pits field, and he is campaigning for the midterms. And a trolley slams it is carriage, and it kills his driver, it kills his bodyguard, who is 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 about 30 feet, lands face down. His glasses are broken, he ends up having to get emergency surgery, but not before threatening the driver of the trolley with a fist in the face and flashing his epic teeth. And he ends up in a wheelchair for six weeks. So Teddy Roosevelt is actually the first roosevelt to be wheelchair bound while president , not fdr. This week biden just declared his running for president , but i think the chances of that two term Vice President becoming president . I learned that if there is no bolster theres no outside making predictions. I also warned about predictions, if you make them for an up in advance, and were not for enough in advance, you have the luxury of everybody forgetting if youre wrong, and then you get to remind people that youre a genius, if youre right. But one year is not enough time to do that. When i will say is, were in the longest period of time in history without a president dying in office. The previous longest period of time was George Washington to henry harrison. So were in the longest period without a president dying in, office we have the oldest president in the history of the republic, and at least two of the serious contenders on the democratic side are in their seventies. And yet we are still treating the selection of a Vice President , like a political gimmick. So i think the danger with how we think about the vice presidency is the seriousness and the recklessness with which we choose Vice President s, is office catered by the fact that the last several white, whether you like them or not, are certainly capable of leading the republic. So, we dont pay a lot of attention to the recklessness of. It but look no further back then sarah palin, in 2008. And you realize we literally learned nothing. So, i think its a terrible idea to let the candidates let choose who they run against. Because what that says i need ten points in the polls, in this particular week, in this particular chapter of the campaign, which should have absolutely nothing to do with whether somebody can lead in a crisis. Followup question, something you talked about, it pertains to something im working. On i cannot believe that roosevelt wouldve had trimmed his bp and not tell the Manhattan Project. Roosevelt didnt think about it, he was just trying to pummel, he barely spent any time, he was in georgia recovering, or he was traveling. You know, its interesting, i did the interviews that i could for this book, even though most chapters in history, people are dead. All the Tyler Scranton is very useful for a anecdotes. But i asked george w. Bushs question, because i did in american terms with him before he died, kissinger, cheney, and a number of others, and they all had the same comments about the vice presidency. Which is i asked him in the context of fdr, and kissingers remarks on this was quite amazing. He said if fdr knew he was dying, and in denial about it, why would you want the person who is most likely to benefit from your death lingering around . And fdr didnt want to set eyes on truman. If you know they are dying in your in denial of dying you dont want to look at the guy whos about to take over for you. You mentioned you are gonna tell us about nixon in forward, so please do. So if im a revisionist, i dont be funny, i would say i got tired and i dont want to do an extra chapter. Thats not actually the reason, it was a glimmer decision. At the beginning, because when i was captivated by, my entire life, was this idea of how is somebody whos not the voters choice, who nobody wants as president , how do they lead something thats not theirs when everybody misses their predecessor . So the idea of death in office comes with a sense of deprive all, you are depriving the voters of the person that they choose, that they chose. And whoever sends to the presidency, has to deal with the reality of the country in mourning. They have to feel an obligation to continue at least paying homage to some elements of their predecessors policies. Where is if you look at nixon resigning in disgrace, ford was under no obligation to nixon by any stretch of the imagination, except maybe pardoning him. So, it really feels different to me. And i do talk about the nixon two for transition, i talk about it in the context of a discussion towards the end of the book about the 25th amendment. Because the first time the 25th amendment is put into practice, is when Richard Nixon plugs gerald ford for michigans fifth, to replace another man as a Vice President. And we were glad he did. Because he was certainly needed. The interesting thing, as you would think that the 25th amendment wouldve been put into practice, when reagan was shot in 1981, it wasnt. Because james baker and others around reagan they didnt want to said the president of making in a determination of the cabinet that the president was unfit, for office. And there is no evidence that the reflected back on james guard field being on his deathbed for 80 days, or will draw world soon and his stroke. But i do wonder sometimes if its in the back of their minds. So the first time in 25th amendment has ever due to an inability of the president to discharge their duties, the only time its ever been appointed in practice is for colonoscopys. Seriously. Those are one more storyline coming up with any question. That Vice President cheney told me. Because he was the champion chief of staff are gerald fold, and will people and realize about ford is that fort had two assassination attempts against him in the span of 35 days. So, next week he fired a shot at him and the gun mile functions, and then 35 days later, hes giving a speech outside of a hotel and he comes down the elevator and its one of those elevators that opens vertically instead of horizontally, and cheney talked about how the elevator door hit forward on the top of the head, cracked his cool open, he went back upstairs to the room, had to get stitches, came back down and someone trying to fight shot at him. Luckily a secret Service Agent got his finger between the assassin and the trigger, and third it, and prevented him from killing gerald ford. But his punchline was that he described that is a really bad day for the president. This is kind of apropos to the question, and what you just said about ford, and the question is what is the process is for selection appointment of the Vice President of the accidental president . So, you mean it was a process by which a . Secured away also ended up with Nelson Rockefeller as Vice President , which was you know an accidental Vice President i guess you could say. So once the Vice President sends to the presidency, what is the process for a new Vice President , its like to . Reporter its the same, its no different, the 25th amendments as a president of the United States gets to pick somebody that they can nominate and go through an approval process, in congress. So its the same process whether its the accidental,. If somebody ends up as a president ial accident, and it works a little bit, amendment the Selection Process for replacing them is the same as if there was a president who became president based on that development. Other questions . If not i can also tell more stories. The stories really are endlessly incredible. I will tell you my favorite quote from the book. So most of the president s, most of the accidental president when it up as president s never really spent much time thinking about it. Either the expected to be relevant, Teddy Roosevelt spent his entire life thinking about being president. So when mckinley, when he finds out mckinley dies, he can sort of hardly contain his enthusiasm for the idea that hes president. But he is conflicted. And he has this amazing quote where he says its a terrible thing to come into the presidency this way, but it will be fars worst to be more bit about it. As im thinking truman would be in this category, but are there any others maybe im wrong on truman, who the Vice President for the santa presidency actually is politically aligned with a continuation of the policies of the former . Because i think as you made the point, often they were being picked for the balance and for their differences, etc. Are any of the others actually try to fulfill the aspirations of the . First the closest example of this i would say is colvin coolidge. And this is an interesting one, because the transition i think has no most comparison with our present a moment. If you look at the previous administration, its one of the most scandalous. It was a massive oil scandal. A huge scandal with the veterans bureau. And the attorney general in the Justice Department complicit in everything from bootlegging, fight fixing, stop manipulation. There were sort of suicides within the ranks, and fishing murders. It was a nasty Justice Department. And a very corrupt attorney general. Harding dies an important enormous popular, man and coolidge is the only accidental presidency to us any acidity with less than a year to go before a president ial election of 1924. So, coolidge knows what the Harding Administration was all about. And he is terrified the scandals are in a raid on his watch. The republicans are gonna lose in 1920, foreign powers gonna be handed over to the democrats. So he has a very self reflective moment where he recognizes that hes quite, boring and that hes a nonentity. Theres many stories about tr coolidge, my favorite one is where hes at the hotel in the hotel is on fire and he is told that he needs to evacuate, and he says but im Vice President , and they say ok then you can stay. And many turn around and say the Vice President of white, and he says United States. He says no you need to evacuate. Sorry without you or the Vice President of the hotel. So its interesting about coolidge, he developed a very interesting strategy, he takes the truth, which is that he is boring and insignificant, and he cultivates this image of filing cow. A man sobering inside significant that he could possibly have been relevant to know to be complicit in any of the scandals. And it works, and by the way he does more engagement with the public than any president who came before him, because you have the advent of broadcast radio, in the peoples living rooms in a way no president had before. But antiabortion, im not sure he even needed to do that, because economy was booming on such a scale that americans were economically drunk on the idea of asking more pies, consumer products, tabloids, good economic times, and they didnt care so much that the president who he was until the economy completely crumbled. So to the extent that you had a Vice President cannot continue business as usual, Calvin Coolidge is probably the closest to that. So just on that note, i was curious based on your research which Vice President s exercised in new influence on policy, such that the president might have been nonexistent, in your opinion . Federal was the most annoying of the Vice President , nobody could control him. They couldnt control him as assistant secretary of state, nobody could control him as Vice President. Theres a great story of the assistant secretary, so the assistant secretary of the navy, there is a great story about him where the secretary of the navy goes on a six hour break, which is the equivalent of a spa treatment, and he is so worried about why Teddy Roosevelt might do as acting secretary of the navy and six hours, that he had instructed him not to take the country to warn. And while hes getting back treatment, did roosevelt basically mobilize as a country for warren six hours. But, whats interesting, is beginning with Teddy Roosevelt, every single one of the accidental president s gets elected in their own right. None of them once who came before, the deal. And then you have way more we elections as president in the sort of both 19 post 1900 than you did in the period. Before i attribute a lot of that to the Foreign Policy plays a more pronounced role. The president exhorted enormous amount of influence on Foreign Policy. And if you look, turn to your question, really the last three or four Vice President s. And if you look a lot of them a lot of them more pronounced for policies. Other questions . Tell another story . I might. I will have to pull into the reservoir. Ill share a personal story about the writing process of this, because it was really tricky. Because i had a day job, also. But i really wanted to do this in a way that i got my hands on proper i caramel research. And every time i went to write a new chapter, i went through the same emotional period of volatility. Which is i was determined i couldnt do it, there was nothing you to write, and i felt the challenge was daunting. And i decided to, with each chapter, approaches like i was playing the accidental president in a place. And so i would read all of these sort of assessments of their personality, and i would read their letters, and i would try to get in their head. And i got really stuck in lyndon b. Johnson head, and it was a very disturbing experience. 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 when it wouldve been like to be that particular person. You can begin to make, at least foreign opinion about what they might conduct. So those of fund process, which was kind of playing each accidental president in a play, at least for the duration of of writing it. Well yes, please . Andrew johnson was one of the hardest president s to be impeached. They tried several times. Why was it so, why was congress so reluctant to impeach him . Thats a great question. And also, he does get impeach. I think whats interesting about Andrew Johnson, is when people talk about when it catastrophe wise, they are often point to the fact that he was impeached. Theres many reasons to critique Andrew Johnson. The irony is, they think he was impeached for, it was violation of the tenure of office act. Which was deemed unconstitutional. I think it trivializes their failings in the catastrophe of Andrew Johnson, when we focused on impeachment. Instead, we should focus on the fact that when he talks about North Carolina state, he makes no mention of civil rights. That he gives amnesty to every single trader. He allows the Vice President of the confederacy, alexander stevens, to be reelected in the congress. Those are the reasons to criticize Andrew Johnson. In terms of impeachment, i think the threshold was pretty high. I think whats interesting is impeachment, historically, has always been used as a political tool. The only time where you have serious impeachment proceedings, that if they were allowed to play out wouldve resulted in the impeachment, the president was Richard Nixon. That only time where he doesnt really take a political flavor. But the first impeachment proceedings against the president , or against john tyler. And they are totally politically motivated. The impeachment against Andrew Johnson are politically motivated by radical republicans who, when johnson askeds ended the presidency, thought he was one of them. Again, because of all of his rhetoric on taiwan right and punishment of traders. And when the war ended they found out that he was nothing like them. And so, they were basically trying to get him on a technicality. And i think the difficulty in impeaching him, in some respects, reflected a lack of comfort in the house of representatives at the time where the idea of impeachment, sort of taking on a political flavor. Of course, he doesnt impeach, and narrowly ex capes conviction bicycle about. So an ob gyn, hes one of those ones for you go to write and you think on yourself on an earth can i write about him that hasnt been written . And this is whats amazing about history. Theres plenty to captain and right about, theres still a lot of unsolved mysteries, are sold out of missing puzzle pieces in the reconstruction of our history. But i focused on with lbg a really believed he had to resign lbg or be kicked off after kennedy was assassinated. And that was because he was involved in a massive scandal with bobby baker, who was under investigation and when i learned in talking to this man, who remembers this period quite well, was that both at cbs and time had the goods on lbj, they had the full dossier. And they were ready to, go they were ready to go public with it. And when kennedy was assassinated, they made a deliver decision to put it back in the box. And this is really important because the country had been through such a dramatic transition, that you couldnt have a situation where kennedy was assassinated, scandal breaks, and at the height of the cold war the president of the new president of the United States has to resign. Remember, there is no 25th amendment. So theres no provision for replacing the Vice President , so you wouldve gone, they had flipped a speaker in the president pro tem. So they wouldve gone to the president the speaker of the house as acting president , and then they would have to schedule special election. And so this is an interesting sort of ethical issue to debate, in the context of history. Im sorry . I should know the name, yeah. The country had been through this very dramatic transition and what was also fascinating was we dont know the story about how Bobby Kennedy hated lbj. What was very clear to the kennedys when they took that final trip to texas was that lbj did not have the sway in texas that they thought they did. Even if he was not willing to resign, you can speculate that 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, maybe not the subsequent acts either, but you also do not get vietnam. I do not subscribe to that view. I do not think that you wouldve gotten the Civil Rights Act of 1964 because i think the kennedys were prepared to Pay Lip Service to civil rights, but they were not prepared to take electoral risk in favor of civil rights. Its hard to speculate after if they had even won reelection, i think that is a big if. With vietnam, i think the guardians of kennedys reputation, slash unger and sorenson, had reconstructed a narrative that correctly saddles lbj with responsibility in culpability for vietnam, but absolves kennedy a far too much responsibility. Kennedy doubles the number of advisers, he doubles the foreign assistance budget, he turns the other way which is tacit support for the south vietnamese president. And oftentimes people will point to some of the advisers coming home which was later proven to be just part of a normal troop rotation. I dont think kennedy was as predisposed to go down the same escalation path as lbj. But everyone was scared of the big red arrow and they may have found themselves going down the same slippery slope. People that i interviewed were incredibly divided on this. Its a big game of maybe yes and maybe no. This is my personal view is there would have been some form of escalation under kennedy as well. Could you comment on chinese vice presidency . So, what is interesting about cheney, if you look at detainees background, he has one of the most extraordinary records of any man who ever ascended to the vice presidency. His before Vice President and after Vice President is very different narrative. There is no doubt that he was one of the most influential Vice President s in history. Particularly in the first term. But i do think you see the limits of the vice presidency by evaluating his second term as vp. All right, well thank you. Thanks. [applause] up next, university of Mary Washington history Professor William crawley discusses the life and legacy of americas third president , thomas jefferson. Focusing on his words and actions on issues of slavery in race. This video is courtesy of the university. Its from their great lives lecture series. I am pleased
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