In the chaotic swirl of events after President John F. Kennedy's assassination, doctors feared that Vice President Lyndon B. Johnson had suffered a heart attack upon arrival at Parkland Memorial Hospital in Dallas. The signs were ominous: Johnson's face was ashen, and he was clutching his chest. 'There was the real possibility that the No. 3 in the line of succession would become president,' the historian Michael Beschloss told me. Johnson was reportedly examined and a heart attack ruled out'but not before then'House Speaker John McCormack was told that he might be the next president. The declaration prompted a severe bout of vertigo in the 71-year-old. Few moments in history have so starkly exposed the vulnerabilities of the presidential line of succession'or the lack of clarity about how it is protected. Last night provided another illustration of them. If events at the White House Correspondents' Association Dinner had gone differently, a gunman who breached security at the...
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