I think the basic idea makes sense of the succession being messed up. I was recently watching the series "Designated Survivor" which points out that even with a relatively controlled disaster (death of most of the cabinet and congress, but no national massacre) it is difficult to replace a lot of missing people, especially when managing an emergency. It's not the best series, but not bad, btw.
Anyway, my thought was this:
Tanner and Pemberton die along with most of the cabinet, congress and government leaders in the initial exchange.
Following this, the Speaker, a designated survivor, and a senior cabinet officer are among those left. They did not appoint acting secretaries because functions were being carried out under emergency powers by Chiefs of Staff, senior bureaucrats and agency heads who had survived.
The key question appears to be whether or not Munson or his successors appointed any acting secretaries. If they had, this would preserve presidential succession, and i think its reasonable for some GMS to have it so. For my own part, I was never entirely happy with the Broward thing.
Personally, while I am aware of the connection between Twilight 2000 and 2300 AD, I have never really been interested in that future, so I don't care about the US no longer being a military power. What I hve always been far more interested in is post apocalyptic ficition and roleplaying.
The idea of a succession conflict between two cabinet officers seems easily resolved to me: they'd know one another, and the succession depends on their position or the date of their appointment. So it might present a controversy for a time, but it seems to be that if, say, A Secretary of Defense was in charge but then a Secretary of State emerged, the government would have to recognize the Secretary of State as being the legitimate head of government.
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