The Nation: Carl Albert’s Plan for a Smooth Succession

House Speaker Carl Albert’s highest political ambition has been to hold the job he now holds. He has never aspired to the presidency. Yet the Constitution provides that if Richard Nixon resigns or is removed from office before Congress confirms House Minority Leader Gerald Ford as Vice President, Albert, a Democrat, will automatically become President. That might well cause a national convulsion replete with charges that Albert and his Democrats conspired to undo the 1972 election results by “getting” Nixon and grabbing power illegitimately. Albert’s closest friends believe that the Speaker could readily be persuaded to assure the presidential succession to a “legitimate” Republican.

That legitimate successor, of course, is already at hand. Not only did Nixon choose Ford as his potential successor by nominating him as Vice President, but he made that nomination on the recommendation of the Speaker, among others.

Thus Albert’s friends believe that he would assume the presidency only long enough to see that Ford was confirmed by Congress as Vice President; he would then resign in Ford’s favor.

In the unlikely circumstance that the Democratic Congress balked at confirming Ford, Albert could recommend another Republican as Vice President and resign when he was confirmed by Congress. Either course by Albert would assure continued Republican control of the presidency and, perhaps even more important, avoid the inevitable and ugly national crisis that would be brought by accusations of a Democratic “theft” of the White House.