The news that Bush had entered the hospital at Bethesda was flashed by wire services
around the planet. Bush was exhibiting a fast, irregular heart rhythm. The heart was
working less efficiently, producing a tendency for shortness of breath, light- headedness,
and even fainting. Sometimes atrial fibrillation is associated with a heart attack, or with
damage to a heart valve. The first step in Bush's treatment was the attempt to slow the
heart rate and to restore the normal rhythm. After an hour of tests, doctors gave Bush
digoxin, a drug used to restore the usual heart rhythm. When the digoxin proved unable
to do the job alone, Bush's physicians began to administer another heart medication,
procainamide. Though doctors claimed that Bush showed "some indications of a positive
response" to this therapy, Bush's heart irregularity was resistant to the medicines and
persisted through Sunday, May 5. Doctors also began to administer an anticoagultant
drug, Coumadin, in addition to aspirin. Bush was thus being kept going with four
different medications.
At this point, Bush's medical team was forced to contemplate resorting to
electrocardioversion, a procedure in which an electric shock is administered to the heart,
momentarily stopping the heart and resetting its rhythm. This prospect was enough to
create a crisis of the entire regime, since electrocardioversion would have required Bush
to undergo general anesthesia, which in turn would have mandated the transfer of
presidential powers to Vice President Dan Quayle. Back in 1985, we have seen that Bush
was the beneficiary of such a transfer when Reagan underwent surgery for colon cancer.
The transfer would have been accomplished under Section III of the Twenty-Fifth
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 Monday, May 6 his doctors suddenly pronounced him fit to return
to the Oval Office, where he was seated at his desk 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 a telephone 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]