September 11 Commission Report - Gnostic Liberation Front

line of succession would begin with the Secretary of State and would continue through
the Cabinet department. While the 25 th Amendment, passed in 1967 addresses the
replacement of the President and Vice-President, it does not clarify subsequent order.
Opinion about the correct order is not unanimous.
“Next are the hardy perennial (questions). First among these is whether the Speaker of the House and
the President Pro Tem of the Senate are officers in the sense intended by article II of the Constitution.
Are they therefore constitutionally eligible to succeed to the presidency? There has been a simmering
controversy over this question for many years. A second question is more political or perhaps
philosophical: should the officers in line to succeed the President and Vice President be elected
Members of the House and Senate, as currently provided, or should we return to the Succession Act of
1886 and put appointed Cabinet officers at the top of the list?” [ 2004 PRESIDENTIAL SUCCESSION
ACT, HEARING BEFORE THE SUBCOMMITTEE ON THE CONSTITUTION OF THE
COMMITTEE ON THE JUDICIARY HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES, ONE HUNDRED
EIGHTH CONGRESS,SECOND SESSION,OCTOBER 6, 2004; Testimony of Thomas H. Neale]
Evidently, after 9/11, this interpretation of the law was so uncertain that Bush
implemented the famous “shadow government” without advising those in the presidential
line of succession
“Key congressional leaders said yesterday the White House did not tell them that President Bush has
moved a cadre of senior civilian managers to secret underground sites outside Washington to ensure
that the federal government could survive a devastating terrorist attack on the nation's capital.
There are two other branches of government that are central to the functioning of our democracy. I
would hope the speaker and the minority leader would at least pose the question, 'What about us?'
Rep. William Delahunt (D-Mass.), a member of the House Judiciary Committee Senate Majority
Leader Thomas A. Daschle (D-S.D.) said he had not been informed about the role, location or even the
existence of the shadow government that the administration began to deploy the morning of the Sept.
11 hijackings. An aide to House Minority Leader Richard A. Gephardt (D-Mo.) said he similarly was
unaware of the administration's move.
Among Congress's GOP leadership, aides to House Speaker J. Dennis Hastert (Ill.), second in line to
succeed the president if he became incapacitated, and to Senate Minority Leader Trent Lott (Miss.)
said they were not sure whether they knew.
Aides to Sen. Robert C. Byrd (D-W. Va.) said he had not been told. As Senate president pro tempore,
he is in line to become president after the House speaker.” [Congress Not Advised Of Shadow
Government , Amy Goldstein and Juliet Eilperin, Washington Post, 3/2/2002]
Only by understanding the tension between Bush and Haig in 1981, and the recent efforts
by Bush to control decisions in the Whitehouse, does Haig’s historic statement take on
its real context. Haig would press - in private – for an investigation into any possible
conspiracy around the attempted assassination of Ronald Reagan. His request was overridden
by George Bush, who now controlled the emergency security meeting.
Being in the key position to control key meetings, Bush’s first actions were to cancel
three activities: 1) any independent investigation into the attempted assassination, 2) a
NORAD defense exercise which had mobilized the military, and 3) a FEMA exercise,
which had the potential to take over the government.
“Defense Secretary Caspar Weinberger's memoir of that afternoon reminds us of two highly relevant
facts. The first is that a "NORAD [North American Air Defense Command] exercise with a simulated
THE SEPTEMBER 11 COMMISSION REPORT Page 270