For a reminder of what a difference it made that Jerry Ford became president in August 1974, think of this: if Congress had let Nixon nominate his first choice for vice president after Spiro Agnew’s resignation in disgrace, ex-Texas governor John Connally would have been the 38th president. That same month, Connally was indicted for perjury and obstruction of justice in a separate scandal. (He was later acquitted.) Would faith in our system have survived after we watched a president and vice president quit, only to see a new president indicted as he was sworn in?
That would have been a rather unfortunate turn of events. On the other hand, the sort of faith in the system that Beschloss is talking about is a blind faith. The system per se didn’t prevent such a turn of events. Happenstance (and the greater likelihood of Ford being confirmed as vice president) ultimately led to a Ford rather than a Connally presidency. If your faith in the system is predicated on something not happening that very well could have happened, and that could happen again, then that’s not faith but wishful thinking. It’s the same sort of fair-weather faith that leads to the rather incoherent argument that to try a President for a violation of the law would threaten the system of laws. What Beschloss credits as faith is actually fear.
