who was vice president under ronald reagan?
George H. W. Bush
contradiction
 = = = Appointment of Gerald Ford as Vice President ( 1973 ) = = = 

contradiction
 When Gerald Ford became President , the Vice Presidency became vacant . On August 20 , 1974 , after having previously considered Melvin Laird and George Bush , President Ford nominated former New York Governor Nelson Rockefeller to succeed him as Vice President . 

entailment
 The Nixon administration skirted the Ineligibility Clause during its first year , when Nixon named Representative Donald Rumsfeld as Director of the Office of Economic Opportunity in 1969 . Although the salary for that office had been increased to $ 42 @,@ 500 during Rumsfeld 's term in Congress , Rumsfeld was not paid a salary for the position . Rather , Rumsfeld was dually employed as Assistant to the President at the same $ 42 @,@ 500 salary , a position presumably outside the scope of the Clause . 

contradiction
 = = = Appointment of Nelson Rockefeller as Vice President ( 1974 ) = = = 

neutral
 President Reagan professed that he was unaware of the plot 's existence . He opened his own investigation and appointed two Republicans and one Democrat ( John Tower , Brent Scowcroft and Edmund Muskie , known as the " Tower Commission " ) to investigate the scandal . The commission could not find direct evidence that Reagan had prior knowledge of the program , but criticized him heavily for his disengagement from managing his staff , making the diversion of funds possible . A separate report by Congress concluded that " If the president did not know what his national security advisers were doing , he should have . " Reagan 's popularity declined from 67 % to 46 % in less than a week , the greatest and quickest decline ever for a president . The scandal resulted in fourteen indictments within Reagan 's staff , and eleven convictions . 
