In of In the wake of the assassination of President John F. Kennedy, doctors feared that Vice President Lyndon B. Johnson had suffered a heart attack. to arrive at Parkland Memorial Hospital in Dallas. The symptoms were terrible: Johnson’s face was ashen, and he was clutching his chest. “There was a real possibility that No. 3 in the line of succession would become president,” historian Michael Beschloss told me. Johnson was reportedly diagnosed with a heart attack to be separated-but not before then-Speaker of the House John McCormack was told that he could be the next president. The declaration caused a severe vertigo attack in the 71-year-old man.
Few moments in history have so conclusively exposed the weakness of the presidential column—or the lack of transparency about how it is protected. Last night provided another example of them. If the events at the White House Correspondents’ Association Dinner had gone differently, the gunman who breached security at the Washington Hilton could have arrived at the theater with an unusually thick group of US officials. The president and vice president were seated a few feet apart. Congress leadership and many Cabinet secretaries were also present. In other words, most of the presidential line was in the same place—and subject to the same weakness.
Senator Chuck Grassley, 92 and third in line as president pro tempore of the Senate, was at home in Iowa—his temporary absence making him one of the most important people in the country. The Press Dinner is built on symbolism: the press, the presidency, and Washington’s political elite gathered in one room, setting aside their differences in celebration of the First Amendment. But the failed attack highlighted the unspeakable danger of such a gathering, with so many figures in row upon row crammed into a hall so crowded with tables, chairs and people that it was difficult to move—no duck for cover.
Jonathan Wackrow, a former Secret Service agent who served on the president’s brief, told me that the system to protect the president—and those who might replace him in the event of his incapacity—is more fragmented than it appears. The task of protecting senior officials is divided among multiple agencies: the Secret Service, the Capitol Police, and departmental security teams, each operating under different mandates and chains of command. The system works best when those in need of protection are dispersed. When they meet, there is a risk of collapse.
“These intense moments of shock make it right to restart the conversation,” Wackrow told me. “Should we get all these political leaders – especially those who are in the line of succession – to gather together in one place?”
A 2003 report and the Government Continuity Commission warned that in the event of a catastrophic strike in Washington, a large part of the succession line could be killed at once. It also identified a larger constitutional dilemma: The inclusion of congressional leaders in the line of succession raises concerns about the separation of powers and the potential for sudden changes in participants in control of the executive branch. Presidential historian Tim Naftali told me that gathering the president, vice president, and speaker in one place while the United States is at war with Iran—a country that has previously been implicated in a conspiracy against Trump and other U.S. officials—was ill-advised. “This is not the right time to have all hands on deck,” he said.
That vulnerability is magnified in an environment like Saturday’s dinner—which, unlike the inauguration or State of the Union address, was not designated a Special National Security Event, the Secret Service told me. The designation, issued by the Department of Homeland Security, establishes a complete federal security architecture, Wackrow explained: integrated command structures, air defenses, chemical and biological surveillance, and coordinated intelligence integration across agencies. Without it, planning is weak, decentralized, and more dependent on local security, he said. (DHS and the White House did not immediately respond to my request for comment.)
Wackrow demonstrated what he calls “results management”—the often-overlooked challenge of what happens after failure is avoided. A crowded room that can accommodate more than 2,000 people is difficult to move quickly. The exits can enter the moving parts. Movement can be dangerous in the presence of fear. Even a contained event can descend into chaos simply because the geometry of the space works against immediate responses.
The modern compliance system was designed to anticipate the worst—but in pieces. The Presidential Succession Act of 1947 rearranged the line of succession to place elected officials—the speaker of the House and the president pro tempore of the Senate—before Cabinet officials. (The secretary of state and the secretary of the Treasury follow suit.) The Twenty-Fifth Amendment, ratified in 1967, filled another gap, creating a formal impeachment process for the president and vice president. But both were reactive reforms, assembled after previous chaos revealed what the system had failed to think about.
During the Cold War, officials faced one version of the problem head-on. The concept of the “designated survivor” — a Cabinet member excluded from major events like the State of the Union address — arose out of fears of nuclear war. In the late 1950s, the US government quietly built a large settlement under the Greenbrier Hotel in West Virginia. Codenamed “Project Greek Island,” it was designed to protect the entire Congress should Washington be destroyed in an attack, complete with dormitories, committee rooms, and temporary chambers of the House and Senate carved into the mountains.
For decades, it sat out in the open, beneath a luxury hotel—hidden in a space built for the sole purpose of keeping the government going in the event of a disaster. The bunker was decommissioned soon after its existence has been revealed for Washington Post in 1992; it is now a Cold War remnant of how Washington once seriously planned for the continuation of constitutional government. What those plans did not fully address was today’s most elusive danger: mass victimization, without warning, in a civilian environment.
That gap persists, although there have been attempts to close it. The 1968 assassination of Robert F. Kennedy in the kitchen of the Ambassador Hotel in Los Angeles led to Secret Service protection for presidential candidates. In 1975, President Gerald Ford survived two attempts on his life in California. Six years later, the shooting of President Ronald Reagan outside the Washington Hilton—the same hotel that hosted last night’s dinner—resulted in the removal of its open celebrity entrance in favor of a cobbled street. “We have learned from history,” Naftali told me.
But that accumulated wisdom is undermined, he suggested, by a lack of foundation. Gathering many leaders in one place, at the same time—especially during a war—”is not a good idea,” he said. Beschloss put it plainly: Elected officials are reluctant to highlight their own weaknesses. “They fear it will make them appear fearful or too distant from other Americans,” he said. But, he added, “we cannot allow national tragedies to become more likely”—a tension that is becoming more acute as political violence becomes more common.
After the January 6 attack on the Capitol, the 2021 inauguration of President Biden took place behind a fortified perimeter, manned by thousands of National Guard soldiers. Beschloss claimed that if there was ever a time to launch indoors, this was it. But Biden wanted to show the importance of a peaceful transfer of power, even if it was done under conditions that resembled a security operation more than a civilian celebration.
The lesson, sustainability experts say, is not that public events should disappear. It’s just that the system is still struggling to reconcile two competing conditions: visibility and survival.
Some leaders have begun to say so openly. Representative Michael McCaul questioned earlier today whether it made sense for the president and vice president to appear together at an event like the Correspondents’ Dinner, noting that a single explosion could have killed several officials in quick succession. Senator John Fetterman, who attended the dinner, argued on social media that the venue was not designed to safely accommodate many senior officials, suggesting the need for more secure, purpose-built venues like the White House lobby the president is currently fighting to build. (The Correspondents’ Dinner is organized by the White House Correspondents’ Association, not the White House.)
But in the short term, it is unclear how much will change. Acting Attorney General Todd Blanche emphasized ABC News that “the system worked,” insisting that law enforcement prevented the disaster and that democratic leaders must remain visible in public spaces.
He he said on CBS Face the Nation: “We will not stop doing things like we did last night in this administration.”
