Video: 'WLS Channel 7 - ABC News Special Report - "Rockefeller Sworn In" (1974)'

(Thursday, December 19, 1973, 10:12 p.m. EST) — Former New York Gov. Nelson A. Rockefeller was sworn in tonight as the 41st Vice President of the United States by Chief Justice Warren E. Burger in a televised ceremony in the Senate chamber with President Gerald Ford looking on.

Only two hours earlier, the House had completed action on Rockefeller’s nomination by voting 287 to 128 for confirmation. He had been confirmed Dec. 10, 1974 by the Senate by a vote of 90 to 7.

Rockefeller was the second person appointed vice president under the 25th Amendment; the first being Ford himself when he replaced Vice President Spiro T. Agnew, who had resigned Oct. 10, 1973.

Ford then succeeded President Richard Nixon when he resigned Aug. 9, 1974, during the Watergate scandal. For the first time in the nation’s history, neither the president or the vice president had been elected in a national election.