Vice-Chairman
Actor: David Hasselhoff
Name: Unknown*Nationality:* American*Affiliation:* Allied Forces / United States*Role:* Vice-President, then President of the United States*Rank:* Commander-in-Chief of the US Armed Forces following his accession to the presidency*Predecessor:* Howard T. Ackerman*Conflict:* Third World War*Appearance:* Command & Conquer: Red Alert 3
Status: Alive at the end of the Allied campaign.
The US Vice-President serves as Howard T. Ackerman’s deputy during the Third World War. His real name is never revealed. He only appears directly at the end of the Allied campaign in Red Alert 3, when he succeeds Ackerman as President of the United States.
Ackerman’s death
During the war, President Ackerman rejects the temporary alliance formed between the Allied Forces and the Soviet Union against the Empire of the Rising Sun. Convinced that the Soviets would eventually betray the Allies, he secretly prepared an attack on Moscow from a base set up at Mount Rushmore.
Field Marshal Robert Bingham regards this initiative as a threat to the alliance and to the entire war effort. The Allied Commander is therefore dispatched to neutralise the base. Ackerman is ultimately killed when his presidential vehicle is destroyed.
His death automatically places his vice-president at the helm of the United States.
President of the United States
Following the Allied Forces’ definitive victory, the new president appears before the press at the White House to officially announce his assumption of office.
He pays tribute to Ackerman and acknowledges that the latter had attempted to destroy Moscow at the cost of millions of lives, whilst portraying his actions as an extreme determination to protect the United States. He also thanks the Allied Commander, whom he regards as one of the key figures responsible for the victory of the free world.
The Vice-President thus officially becomes President of the United States and Commander-in-Chief following Ackerman’s death.
Capitalism versus war
His final speech reveals a personality very different from that of his predecessor.
Ackerman was aggressively anti-communist and favoured military might. His successor proposes a much gentler approach to preventing further wars: spreading capitalism and consumer society amongst the Allies’ former enemies.
According to his reasoning, populations busy buying cars and televisions will be far less inclined to build up armies or develop new weapons. He thus presents the American Dream as a means of stabilising the post-war world.
This scene is, of course, a deliberate caricature of American consumerism, in the satirical vein characteristic of Red Alert 3.
A deliberately anonymous character
Unlike Michael Dugan in Red Alert 2 or Howard Ackerman in Red Alert 3, the character is given no official name.
He is identified solely by his title of Vice President, even after he becomes President. The information available about him therefore remains extremely limited: his past, his age, his precise origins and his pre-war political career are not explored.