In My Time - Dick Cheney [169]
FROM MY TIME IN Congress participating in continuity-of-government exercises, I knew how important it was to ensure we had a plan in place for leadership succession and survival. We had a duty to make sure an enemy attack could not result in decapitation of our government. I asked my general counsel, Dave Addington, to review the formal procedures in place.
With David Addington, my general counsel and later chief of staff, at the vice president’s residence in the summer of 2006. (Official White House Photo/David Bohrer)
What happens, for example, if the president becomes ill or is incapacitated? What happens if the vice president can no longer perform his duties? Who should be notified and what steps should be taken to ensure the government can continue to operate in the wake of a national disaster or act of war? These were matters that Addington and I had worked on together before, and we both knew they needed to be addressed before a crisis was at hand. Early in 2001, I asked him to work closely with the White House counsel’s office to provide advice and guidance as our administration began its own review.
A few weeks later, David came to see me with a problem he had uncovered. “Mr. Vice President,” he said, sitting in the chair next to my desk in my West Wing office, “if you were to become incapacitated, if you were unable to discharge your duties, there is no mechanism by which you could be removed.” And there was a second level of complication, he explained, which had to do with the Twenty-Fifth Amendment to the United States Constitution. It provides that “whenever the vice president and a majority of either the principal officers of the executive departments or of such other body as Congress may by law provide, transmit to the president pro tempore of the Senate and the Speaker of the House of Representatives their written declaration that the president is unable to discharge the powers or duties of his office, the vice president shall immediately assume the powers and duties of the office as acting president.” A vice president is required in order to carry out the Twenty-Fifth Amendment, in other words, and if I were incapacitated, I might stand in the way of the removal of a president unable to discharge his duties—or I might become an incapacitated acting president. Neither of these was a good outcome for the country.
As David and I were discussing succession, I was mindful of my health. I had a long history of coronary artery disease, and although the doctors had concluded that I was strong enough to serve as vice president, I couldn’t discount the possibility of a stroke or another serious heart attack that would leave me unable to function. The example of Woodrow Wilson came to mind. He had suffered a stroke that incapacitated him for the last year and a half of his presidency.
What was needed was a way to remove me from office should I be unable to fulfill my duties, and so I took the extraordinary step of writing a letter of resignation as vice president shortly after I was sworn in. The resignation letter would be effective, as provided by federal law, upon its delivery to the secretary of state. As I signed the letter, I thought about adding instructions concerning when it should be delivered. After all, this was my formal, signed resignation, and it seemed natural that I should set forth the circumstances under which it could be delivered. Addington advised otherwise. He was concerned that any additional notations I made on the letter would muddy the waters should