A political thriller based on the 1967 novel by Robert J. Serling (Rod's brother) about an incompetent vice president who is left in control of the government when Air Force One mysteriously disappears with the President aboard.Although filmed in 1971, it was held up for two and a half years following President Richard Nixon's return from China. According to Peter Graves, in an interview in Boxoffice Magazine: "In it, the Chinese turn out to be the bad guys, so we had to wait three years to see it."