Democratic Congressman Carl Albert of Oklahoma was not a big man.

He said that he was five foot four, but that was widely acknowledged to be a stretch.

One reporter who himself was five foot five wrote a story once, estimating that Carl Albert's

true height was probably more like four foot eleven.

But when House Speaker Sam Rayburn hand picked Carl Albert to be his successor, he said

about Albert, quote, I can tell Big Timber from small brush.

And so in 1973, small in stature Carl Albert was the biggest that Congress got.

He was Speaker of the House.

I hope we get together and work for the country and not work for the two political parties.

Carl Albert was a Democrat.

The Republicans might have held the White House, but after the president and the vice president,

it was House Speaker Carl Albert who was next in the line of succession.

So he was second in line to the presidency.

And it was that last part, second in line to the presidency that started weighing on Carl

Albert that summer of Watergate in 1973.

If you're the House Speaker in normal times, the idea that you might one day actually

have to assume the presidency.

I mean, it's technically true, but it's pretty inconceivable.

It's never going to happen.

But if you were House Speaker in 1973 with a president in Richard Nixon who was crippled

by Watergate and a vice president in Spiro Agnew who was the subject of a major criminal

bribery and extortion investigation, the idea that you as Speaker might one day have to

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