Hello and welcome to Whistle Stop, a podcast of the presidency. I'm John Dickerson of CPS this morning.

November 22nd, 1963, a bleary-eyed vice president lifted his heavy paw of his right hand in the main cabin of Air Force One, his left hand placed upon a Bible.

Next to him stood the widow of the slain President John F. Kennedy, her pink outfit stained

with her husband's blood. Lyndon Baines Johnson was assuming the office of the presidency by

taking the oath of office. Johnson made sure the moment when he took the oath, about two hours

after Kennedy's death, was documented,

so that the nation would know that a peaceful, orderly constitutional change had taken place.

There had been rumors that LBJ had had a heart attack, too.

That picture put people at ease, and in that deed and with that picture, Johnson assumed the mantle of the job at a time when the nation might have even questioned his ability and his legitimacy.

He had been living in the shadow of John Kennedy, and now that they mourned the beloved president, that act and the picture of that act, taking place on the plane,

also carrying the casket of the 35th president, started the orderly transition of power into new

hands, just as the founders had planned it 176 years before, except the founders hadn't planned it

at all.

Actually, what Johnson was doing with his raised hand in the Bible was a norm, not a constitutional mandate,

and it pointed to a flaw in the founding document that needed to be fixed.

Our whistle stop today is April 4, 1841, and President William Henry Harrison, the oldest president at inauguration, is regrettably, and particularly for President Harrison, is regrettably dead. Old tippa canoe has tipped over. A messenger traveled on that day by boat and horse to deliver the news to Williamsburg, Virginia, where the vice president John Tyler was residing. During the 1840 campaign, Tyler was so unknown that Wags in the opposite

party used to mock the famous campaign slogan, Tippecanoo and Tyler, too, by saying,

Tipa Canoe and Tyler who? Well, now Tyler was the top man. In the 52-year history of the

Republic, there had never been a question of succeeding the president, and it was not immediately

clear whether the Constitution dictated that Tyler was to assume the duties of the office of the

presidency, but not the office itself, or by assuming the duties, a vice

president inevitably embraced the office and became the actual president. This mattered because

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