American Experience

The American Vice President

Despite the assassinations of four US presidents (Lincoln, Garfield, McKinley, Kennedy), the in-office deaths of four (Harrison, Taylor, Harding, FDR), the wounding of two (T. Roosevelt, Reagan) and attempts on the lives of several others, before 1963, the unthinkable was unaddressed in the US Constitution. For the first two hundred years of America's democracy, it was not a foregone conclusion that the vice president would step in to replace the president in times of crisis. The office itself has been an afterthought, a punchline, and an Achilles heel for the president. But vice presidents of the United States have also acted as stabilizers, tiebreakers and architects of critical policy despite the office being described by one disgruntled VP as "not worth a bucket of warm spit." So what happens when the President of the United States can't fulfill their duties due to death, illness or incapacity? In this one-hour film, The American Vice President, we will focus in on the fraught period between 1963 and 1976 when a grief-stricken, then scandal stricken America was forced to confront the purpose of the vice president and the succession process through the evolution of the 25th amendment.