The American Vice President

American Experience 2024 |

56 min

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What happens when the President of the United States is unable to fulfill the duties of the office, whether due to illness or incapacity or death? Incredibly, it is a question that went without a definitive answer for much of American history. The framers of the U.S. Constitution clearly named the vice president the designated successor to the commander-in-chief but were vague about the myriad details that would necessarily attend such a transfer of power. More incredible still, despite the assassinations of three sitting U.S. presidents (Lincoln Garfield, McKinley) and the deaths of four more in office (Harrison, Taylor, Harding, FDR), it wasn't until 1963 that the ambiguity of the Constitution was finally deemed worthy of redress.

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The American Vice President tells the little-known story of the second-highest office in the land, tracing its evolution from constitutional afterthought to position of political consequence. Focusing on the fraught period between 1963 and 1974, when a grief-stricken then scandal-plagued America was forced to clarify the vice president's role in our democracy, the film examines the passage and first uses of the 25th Amendment, and offers fresh and surprising perspective on succession in the executive branch.