Heraldic Wing-Lift

John Nance Garner, the man who compared the nation's second highest office to a pitcher of warm spit, was the first Vice President to have an official flag. A decade later in 1948, the Vice presidency had become no more attractive a job, but at least it got its own seal, too. In its center was a rather sickly, droop-winged eagle, clutching one lonely arrow in its left talon. So the Veep's symbol stood, or sagged, for 27 years.

Enter Nelson Rockefeller. The new Vice President publicly complained that the seal was "aesthetically very weak." In private, he was heard to describe his eagle of office as a "wounded partridge." Last winter Rocky asked the experts at the Army's Institute of Heraldry to give the vice presidential bird a little pizazz. They lifted its wings, gave it 13 new arrows and drew in some clouds, stars and dotted lines over its head to signify "radiating glory." Last week the new seal was made official by a White House executive order that was resplendent with heraldic jargon: "Paleways of 13 pieces argent and gules, a chief azure; upon the breast of an American eagle displayed holding in his dexter talon an olive branch proper and in his sinister a bundle of 13 arrows gray." Rockefeller and his assistants were pleased. Said one aide: "This is an eagle that can fly." And just how high? Some astute seal watchers were quick to note that except for the absence of a ringlet of stars around the rim, the new vice presidential seal looked very much like the President's.

This file is automatically generated by a robot program, so viewer discretion is required.