President-elect of the United States the 25th Amendment. The first instance was in 1973, when Gerald Ford was nominated by President Richard Nixon to succeed Spiro Agnew, who had resigned. The second came in 1974, when Ford, who had succeeded to the presidency following Nixon's resignation, nominated Nelson Rockefeller to succeed him. During both vacancies, the nominee was called Vice President-designate, instead of Vice President-elect, as neither had been elected to the office. As a result of these events, the nation has had two more Vice Presidents than it has had Vice President-elects. While he is currently the 48th U.S. Vice President, Mike Pence was
Presidency of Richard Nixon Nixon's initial cabinet also contained an unusually small number of Ivy League graduates, with the exception of George P. Shultz, who held three different cabinet positions during Nixon's presidency. In 1973, as the Watergate scandal came to light, Nixon accepted the resignations of Haldeman, Erlichman, and Mitchell's successor as Attorney General, Richard Kleindienst. Haldeman was succeeded by Alexander Haig, who became the dominant figure in the White House during the last months of Nixon's presidency as Nixon increasingly focused on Watergate. As the Watergate scandal heated up in mid-1973, Vice President Spiro Agnew became a target in an unrelated investigation