Amendment of the Constitution, which states that
Whenever the President transmits to the President pro tempore of the Senate and the Speaker of the
House of Representatives his written declaration that he is unable to discharge the powers and
duties of his office, and until he transmits to them a written declaration to the contrary, such powers
and duties shall be discharged by the Vice President as Acting President.
The specter of Acting President Dan Quayle brought forth a wave of public expressions of
consternation and dismay. According to a Washington Post-ABC public opinion poll published
May 7, 57% of those responding said that in their opinion Quayle was not qualified to take over as
Acting President. In the night between Sunday May 5 and Monday May 6, Bush was still
experiencing sporadic episodes of an irregular heartbeat. But on the morning of Mdoctors suddenly pronounced him fit to return to the Oval Office, where he was seated at his deskonday, May 6 his
by 9:30 AM, and resumed what was described as his normal work schedule. The doctors conceded
only that they had asked Bush to curtail his usual frenetic schedule of recreational sports.
Bush returned to work wired with a portable heart monitor. This was a device about the size of atelephone pager, with white wires leading to patches on his chest which measured the rate of his
heartbeat. Bush stated that he was "Back to normal and the same old me." He declined to show off
his heart monitor with the quip "Do you think I'm Lyndon Johnson?" LBJ had pulled up his shirt to
show reporters a scar on his stomach after a gall bladder operation. [fn 30]
On May 7, Bush's chief attending physician, Dr. Burton Lee, gave a briefing at Bethesda in which
he disclosed that Bush's bout with atrial fibrillation had been caused by an overactive thyroid gland.
Lee assured the press that the problem had been an overactive thryoid secreting too much of the
hormore thyroxin, which helps to regulate the body's metabolic rate. This hormone goes into the
circulatory system, and thus can disturb the proper functioning of the heart. Lower the rate ofproduction of thyroid hormone, and everything would return to normal, was the message. Lee said (^)
that Bush would undergo a thyroid scan and other tests to help determine the appropriate treatment.
Contradicting earlier statements by Fitzwater that there had been no recent danger signals regarding
Bush's health, Lee now revealed that Bush had experienced a small weight loss and episodes of
unusual fatigue during jogging over the previous few weeks. The weight loss had been of eight ornine pounds during the month before Bush was hospitalized. Bush had been tired enough to
complain, "Gee whiz, I must be getting old," on earlier joggings runs. [fn 31] Some of Bush's
symptoms appear to have emerged in February, during the time of the Iraq war. Lee claimed that
Bush had never undergone tests of his thyroid functions because he had shown no symptoms of
thyroid disturbance-- a patent absurdity. According to Burton Lee, the first indication of a thyroiddisturbance came on Monday morning, when a blood test showed that the level of thyroid hormone (^)
in Bush's blood was above normal. These results were then confirmed with repeated blood tests.
The official White House line was that this was good news, since thyroid disorders were easily
treated. Fitzwater recounted that "The President was overjoyed. It means the problem was not aproblem with his heart and that it is virtually 100 percent treatable." Burton Lee chimed in with his (^)
opinion that biochemical hyperthyroidism is "easily treatable."
On May 9, Bush's doctors announced that he was suffering from what they chose to call Graves'
disease, a condition in which the thyroid gland becomes enlarged and produchormone in response to "false messages" from other parts of the body about how much of thees excessive levels of
hormone is needed. Graves' disease is a disorder of the immune system in which the body produces
an antibody which "mimics" the hormone that usually tells the thyroid how much thyroxin to
produce. One decisive test was said to have involved Bush's swallowing of a small dose of
radioactive iodine, followed by observation with a device resembling a geiger counter to obtain an