R.I.P. President Gerald Ford

[criddic3]

Yes, he gave them conditional amnesty.

Also, I recently saw a re-aired conference done in 1999 on Ford's pardon of Nixon. It was the contention of a former attorney for Ford that Nixon is known to have found out about the Watergate break-in well after the crime was committed. So his crime would have been not to order the crime or to have comitted the act, but having obstructed justice by not revealing what he knew after the fact. This I believe makes Ford's pardon at least reasonable in the context of Nixon's own guilt. And I think it also proves my statement earlier about him not having malice in his actions, was accurate. He took the fall for other people, politically and personally. When people talk about Nixon and Watergate, they often react as if he had ordered the break-in. So people think he was to be hated. As I said before, I really think he was protecting the Presidency (and possibly his party, which abandoned him during this crisis), and chose not to divulge what he knew. Who knows exactly what he knew or if it would have made much difference if it was revealed then?! It's all such a strange turn of events.

Edit: Re-reading this post I realize that it looks like I'm defending Nixon. I meant moreso to defend Ford's pardon of Nixon. While I think President Nixon was one of our most intelligent leaders, he was prone to paranoia and undid himself far too often. And while I don't think he was in on the break-in, his cover-up was probably a bad choice despite what I think was a misguided attempt at nobility. I don't think he was a bad man, either, but just totally out-of-touch at times with reality. His resignation was a good move, and was a noble act, however. He could have dragged things out till the end of his term (and possibly survived impeachment), but took the high-road approach.

[Sonic Youth]

I finally learned about something good Ford did as president. He pardoned all the Vietnam veterans who dodged the draft. Kudos to that.

Christopher Hithchens has an alternate view to all the ass-kissing going on now.



Our Short National Nightmare
How President Ford managed to go soft on Iraqi Baathists, Indonesian fascists, Soviet Communists, and the shah … in just two years.
By Christopher Hitchens
Posted Friday, Dec. 29, 2006, at 2:08 PM ET



One expects a certain amount of piety and hypocrisy when retired statesmen give up the ghost, but this doesn't excuse the astonishing number of omissions and misstatements that have characterized the sickly national farewell to Gerald Ford. One could graze for hours on the great slopes of the massive obituaries and never guess that during his mercifully brief occupation of the White House, this president had:

Disgraced the United States in Iraq and inaugurated a long period of calamitous misjudgment of that country.
Colluded with the Indonesian dictatorship in a gross violation of international law that led to a near-genocide in East Timor.
Delivered a resounding snub to Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn at the time when the Soviet dissident movement was in the greatest need of solidarity.

Instead, there was endless talk about "healing," and of the "courage" that it had taken for Ford to excuse his former boss from the consequences of his law-breaking. You may choose, if you wish, to parrot the line that Watergate was a "long national nightmare," but some of us found it rather exhilarating to see a criminal president successfully investigated and exposed and discredited. And we do not think it in the least bit nightmarish that the Constitution says that such a man is not above the law. Ford's ignominious pardon of this felonious thug meant, first, that only the lesser fry had to go to jail. It meant, second, that we still do not even know why the burglars were originally sent into the offices of the Democratic National Committee. In this respect, the famous pardon is not unlike the Warren Commission: another establishment exercise in damage control and pseudo-reassurance (of which Ford was also a member) that actually raised more questions than it answered. The fact is that serious trials and fearless investigations often are the cause of great division, and rightly so. But by the standards of "healing" celebrated this week, one could argue that O.J. Simpson should have been spared indictment lest the vexing questions of race be unleashed to trouble us again, or that the Tower Commission did us all a favor by trying to bury the implications of the Iran-Contra scandal. Fine, if you don't mind living in a banana republic.

To enlarge on the points that I touched upon above: Bob Woodward has gone into print this week with the news that Ford opposed the Bush administration's intervention in Iraq. But Ford's own interference in the life of that country has gone unmentioned. During his tenure, and while Henry Kissinger was secretary of state, the United States secretly armed and financed a Kurdish rebellion against Saddam Hussein. This was done in collusion with the Shah of Iran, who was then considered in Washington a man who could do no wrong. So that when the shah signed a separate peace with Saddam in 1975, and abandoned his opportunist support for the Kurds, the United States shamefacedly followed his lead and knifed the Kurds in the back. The congressional inquiry led by Rep. Otis Pike was later to describe this betrayal as one of the most cynical acts of statecraft on record.

In December 1975, Ford was actually in the same room as Gen. Suharto of Indonesia when the latter asked for American permission to impose Indonesian military occupation on East Timor. Despite many denials and evasions, we now possess the conclusive evidence that Ford (and his deputy Kissinger) did more than simply nod assent to this outrageous proposition. They also undertook to defend it from criticism in the United States Congress and elsewhere. From that time forward, the Indonesian dictatorship knew that it would not lack for armaments or excuses, both of these lavishly supplied from Washington. The figures for civilian deaths in this shameful business have never been properly calculated, but may well amount to several hundred thousand and thus more than a quarter of East Timor's population.

Ford's refusal to meet with Solzhenitsyn, when the great dissident historian came to America, was consistent with his general style of making excuses for power. As Timothy Noah has suggested lately, there seems to have been a confusion in Ford's mind as to whether the Helsinki Treaty was intended to stabilize, recognize, or challenge the Soviet domination of Eastern Europe. However that may be, the great moral component of the Helsinki agreement—that it placed the United States on the side of the repressed populations—was ridiculed by Ford's repudiation of Solzhenitsyn, as well as by his later fatuities on the nature of Soviet domination. To have been soft on Republican crime, soft on Baathism, soft on the shah, soft on Indonesian fascism, and soft on Communism, all in one brief and transient presidency, argues for the sort of sportsmanlike Midwestern geniality that we do not ever need to see again.

Finally to the Mayaguez. Ford did not dispatch forces to "rescue" the vessel, as so many of his obituarists have claimed. He ordered an attack on the Cambodian island of Koh Tang, several hours after the crew of the ship had actually been released. A subsequent congressional inquiry discovered that he, and Henry Kissinger, could have discovered as much by monitoring Cambodian radio and contacting foreign diplomats. Eighteen Marines and 23 USAF men were killed in this pointless exercise in bravado, as were many Cambodians. The American names appear on the Vietnam memorial in Washington, even though their lives were lost long after the undeclared war was officially "over." The Ford epoch did not banish a nightmare. It ended a dream—the ideal of equal justice under the law that would extend to a crooked and venal president. And in Iraq and Indonesia and Indochina, it either protracted existing nightmares or gave birth to new ones.

[Damien]

From Daily Kos:

Former President Gerald Ford believes the federal government should treat gay couples the same as married couples, including providing equal Social Security and tax benefits. Ford's views, expressed in an exclusive telephone interview, make him the highest-ranking Republican ever to endorse equal treatment for gay couples.

"I think they ought to be treated equally. Period," Ford declared. Asked specifically whether gay couples should get the same Social Security, tax and other federal benefits as married couples, he replied, "I don't see why they shouldn't. I think that's a proper goal."
***************************************

Lyndon Johnson once claimed that Gerald Ford was too dumb "to walk and fart at the same time." Perhaps. But Ford could definitely fart while standing still, which he apparently did with alarming frequency and abandon. According to his Secret Service detail, the president would loudly let one rip and then always attempt to put the blame on one of them with indignant remarks like, "Jesus, did you do that? Show a little class."
---From Secret Lives of the Presidents by Cormac O'Brien (Quirk Books

[criddic3]

That's depending on what Nixon actually did. It doesn't strike me as credible to believe that he ordered the break in. More likely that he was told about it sometime afterwards, and helped to cover it up, which was probably more about protecting the presidency and his party than about any actual malice. So I'm not sure he deserved to be put on trial for the whole mess anyway.

I understand where you are coming from but I never bought into that defense of Nixon. He was always known as a highly controlling, anal personality who knew what was going on around him. I have no idea if he ordered the break-in but it would be in character for him to do so or at least to be aware of it ahead of time. If he thought the Democrats might have had some harmful information about him or his supporters he would likely be behind a covert operation to find out as much as he could (he was like a lot of powerful politicians).

If, as you suggest, he found out about the break-in afterwards and participated in any effort to help those responsible avoid justice or get them to not be fully forthcoming with the authorities (e.g., by bribing those responsible for the break-in), or anything else that would be called a "cover up", he commited a crime. All people should be accountable for their crimes. Wealthy and powerful people are often not held accountable for their crimes, but it is still regrettable when it happens.

Well yes all people should be accountable for their crimes. Nixon was notoriously paranoid, as brilliant as he often was, and I can see how he could be led to believe the Dems were out to destroy him in the re-election campaign. However, I also think he would have been too smart to be involved directly with the crime that took place. Whatever his faults were, the man had a great reverence for the Presidency and had great personal dignity and pride. I have a hard time believing he would have taken that route.

Through it all, though, I think the country is better off not having gone through the ordeal of a trial that may not have revealed much more than we already know.

Sonic, I know all about the "list." I also know that Nixon had friends as well as enemies. His paranoia was interesting precisely because he was in a business notorious for backstabbing. He most certainly encountered situations where people were really out to get him, but this was inflated through the years into something of an obsession. Whether this is what ultimately led to his resignation cannot be fully known, but that doesn't account for what his actual role was in the Watergate scandal. He wasn't a bad man, but he sometimes did perplexing things throughout his career. Here was a man who came up from a poor upbringing to become President of United States, only to resign in disgrace. A true American tragedy, as President Ford said.

And by the way, an impeachment hearing is essentially leading to a senate trial, which is precisely the same (albeit in a higher setting) as a court trial. There are some historians who have said he might have actually been able to avoid conviction in the senate had he held out, but he resigned knowing that either way his Presidency was tarnished.

[Sonic Youth]

That's depending on what Nixon actually did. It doesn't strike me as credible to believe that he ordered the break in. More likely that he was told about it sometime afterwards, and helped to cover it up, which was probably more about protecting the presidency and his party than about any actual malice. So I'm not sure he deserved to be put on trial for the whole mess anyway.

Criddic, you're the only one on the planet that is unaware that a special enemies list and many hours of audiotape exist proving Nixon had nothing but malice for anyone he didn't like. Even for those who weren't niggers, fags and cocksucking Jews. (His words.)

No actual malice. LMFAO!

It is true that Nixon was only called upon by the grand jury as an unindicted co-conspirator. But it's pretty much understood by all except the pathologically partisan that there was something he could have easily been put on trial for.

However, with the political atmosphere at the time, the country would likely have gone through a torturous and expensive trial that would have continued throughout the Ford years.

I guess Ford knew Nixon would continue to lie. A public confession of his role in Watergate would have saved us all of that.

I wonder, though... does this mean the Democrats would have been wrong to subject the country through a torturous, expensive, and time-consuming impeachment hearing had Nixon not resigned?

[OscarGuy]

I despise what Nixon did, but he was a terrific economist. If that were his legacy and not Watergate, then perhaps people might feel better about him but that's indelibly not the case.

[kaytodd]

That's depending on what Nixon actually did. It doesn't strike me as credible to believe that he ordered the break in. More likely that he was told about it sometime afterwards, and helped to cover it up, which was probably more about protecting the presidency and his party than about any actual malice. So I'm not sure he deserved to be put on trial for the whole mess anyway.

I understand where you are coming from but I never bought into that defense of Nixon. He was always known as a highly controlling, anal personality who knew what was going on around him. I have no idea if he ordered the break-in but it would be in character for him to do so or at least to be aware of it ahead of time. If he thought the Democrats might have had some harmful information about him or his supporters he would likely be behind a covert operation to find out as much as he could (he was like a lot of powerful politicians).

If, as you suggest, he found out about the break-in afterwards and participated in any effort to help those responsible avoid justice or get them to not be fully forthcoming with the authorities (e.g., by bribing those responsible for the break-in), or anything else that would be called a "cover up", he commited a crime. All people should be accountable for their crimes. Wealthy and powerful people are often not held accountable for their crimes, but it is still regrettable when it happens.

[criddic3]

That period of history will officially end with the passing of Carter who seems to have quite a few years left in him.

-- Oscarguy

That's if you don't count President George H. W. Bush, who was very much in the public eye during Watergate and at the end of the Cold War.

With this standard, the most powerful and influential can get away with anything.

-- Sonic

That's depending on what Nixon actually did. It doesn't strike me as credible to believe that he ordered the break in. More likely that he was told about it sometime afterwards, and helped to cover it up, which was probably more about protecting the presidency and his party than about any actual malice. So I'm not sure he deserved to be put on trial for the whole mess anyway. However, with the political atmosphere at the time, the country would likely have gone through a torturous and expensive trial that would have continued throughout the Ford years. President Ford made the right choice, but the way people are talking about it now you'd almost think it was a popular decision at the time.

[Mister Tee]

Sonic, Bob Hope even made a joke back in 1975, when Ford had just been assassin-targeted for the second time in a few weeks -- "Why are they shooting at President Ford? He hasn't done anything"

Ford's being chosen as VP in the first place is a key footnote to Watergate -- as vile as Nixon was, many in DC would have been loathe to toss him out only to replace with him the equally despicable Agnew. Only that Spiro fortuitously got into his own legal problems made the situation work.

Magilla, you may have been familiar with Ford as a Congressman, but I, who at 21 was only beginning to follow politics truly closely, had never heard of him when he was chosen (and I think this was the American norm. I saw Bette Midler in concert that very weekend, and her opening remark was, "All right, who the hell is Gerald Ford?"). He was certainly more classically conservative than Nixon had been -- "Cut spending" was pretty much his governmental philosophy -- but he so lacked the gutter instinct that much of the GOP has relied on since that, though I didn't vote for him in '76, I felt grateful that, for one of the few times in my life, I found neither of that year's presidential nominees horrifying.

I've never quite decided about the pardon. I was outraged at the time; in retrospect I can see the arguments for lancing the boil fully (Watergate had so consumed the country for about 16 months). But the "history has proven him right" side of the argument seems to assume that, absent the pardon, there was no way to avoid a long drawn-out battle. Couldn't Nixon have at least been required to acknowledge guilt (something he never did to his dying day)?

Ford was a modest man -- a classic lifetime House member -- who, as Magilla says, seemed wonderfully refreshing after Nixon. But he also, as Churchill put it about Attlee, had much to be modest about. He ably performed the healing function everyone's been talking about for the past 24 hours, but accomplished little else. The presidency had been thrust upon him in a way that brought Allen Drury plots to mind, but he never rose to any matching greatness. If ever the term Caretaker President applies, it applies to Gerald Ford -- a very decent man, as politicians go.

[Big Magilla]

I thought Ford brought a breath of fresh air to the White House. I considered him extremely right wing when in was in Congress, yet from his first day as President when he was photographed picking up his own newspaper in his bathrobe he brought a disarming simplicity to the Presidency that had been lacking since Harry Truman. His frequent pratfalls only tended to humanize him further and his family led by his the irrepressible Betty was a constant delight.

I was shocked and dismayed when he pardoned Nixon and suspected a cover-up for a long time, but like Ted Kennedy and others, in restrospect it seemed like the right thign to do. What more could they have done to Nixon? They weren't going to send him to prison or exile him. He lived the remainder of his life in disgrace. That was enough.

The man continually exhibited class. He was never invited to any White House functions in the eight years that Reagan lived there yet he showed up front and center at Reagan's funeral when he could have used his age and failing health as an excuse to skip it. He and Carter are probably the nicest men to inhabit the White House in the last last fifty years and Betty Ford is second only to Eleanor Roosevelt as an example of what a First Lady should be.

[Damien]

One wonderful thing Ford did was appoint a great jurist to the Supreme Court, John Paul Stevens.

But I remember as if it were yesterday hearing that Ford had pardonned Nixon. I was a sophomore in college and had just walked into my dorm, and everyone was screaming about what he had done. Everyone was furious, and I still think it was a bad, bad decision.

It also is hard to believe now, given the trash that sat in the White House in the 1980s and 2000s, but when Ford was announced by Nixon to be his vice, he was considered extremely right wing. Corretta Scott King was one person who gave her name and support to the anti-Ford cause. (I remember a newspaper ad stating that if Ford got in, Abraham Lincoln would be spinning in his grave.)

Betty Ford was a wonderful first lady, such a contrast to the self-medicating Stepford Wife who's in there now.

[Sonic Youth]

Plus, I will always respect and honor him for pardoning Pres. Nixon, an action which cost him election and must grief at the time, but was a necessary evil to allow this nation to regain its composure and move forwards instead of backwards.

See, everybody is saying this and I won't deny that it's compelling point, but I disagree. Maybe that did spare the nation a long-term burden, but should that be a reason not to hold someone accountable? With this standard, the most powerful and influential can get away with anything.

And maybe if he were convicted, it would be a powerful incentive for subsequent presidents - especially this one - to not get away with the #### they do.

I was sad to hear of his passing, and yes it's a solemn event. That's a testament to the mythic power of the office. I have no memory of Watergate, but one of my earliest, vaguest memories is all the television coverage of Ford's swearing-in ceremony. I remember nothing of the rest of his presidency. But the fact is, even what I know of him there seems to be nothing to comment upon. Everyone is parroting the same platitudes: "What a nice guy he was. What an honest, devoted, level-headed man." But except for the Nixon pardon, I'm hard-pressed to discover one thing he actually DID, even after reading the obituaries. I have absolutely no idea what he accomplished, either as a president or as an ex-president. (I do know he made lots of money later in life.) All the Republicans are now chiding Barak Obama supporters, asking "How can you support him when he hasn't done anything? What has he done? What will he do? No one seems to know." And for good reason. I agree with them! But to then take the same puffery and apply it to a very undistinguished former president is the height of disingenousness.

[Sonic Youth]

Ford was the last surviving member of the Warren Commission,

Um... Arlen Spector, guys?

Fox News also reported this bad info.

EDIT: I was wrong. He was a lawyer for the commission.

I say it's a distinction without a difference. He came up with the "magic bullet" theory. That's some participation for a non-member.

[OscarGuy]

Just before Reagan died, we were living in the longest period of American history where so many past presidents still lived. With Reagan and Ford gone, the last remnants of the Cold War start to fall to pieces. That period of history will officially end with the passing of Carter who seems to have quite a few years left in him.

Anyway, here's a more complete obit.

Former President Gerald Ford dies at 93

By JEFF WILSON, Associated Press Writer 6 minutes ago

LOS ANGELES - Gerald R. Ford, who picked up the pieces of
Richard Nixon's scandal-shattered White House as the 38th president and the only one never elected to nationwide office, has died. He was 93.
ADVERTISEMENT

"My family joins me in sharing the difficult news that Gerald Ford, our beloved husband, father, grandfather and great grandfather has passed away at 93 years of age," former first lady Betty Ford said in a brief statement issued from her husband's office in Rancho Mirage. "His life was filled with love of God, his family and his country."

The statement did not say where or when Ford died or list a cause of death. Ford had battled pneumonia in January 2006 and underwent two heart treatments — including an angioplasty and a pacemaker implant — in August at the Mayo Clinic in Rochester, Minn.

"The American people will always admire Gerald Ford's devotion to duty, his personal character and the honorable conduct of his administration,"
President Bush said in a statement Tuesday night. "We mourn the loss of such a leader, and our 38th president will always have a special place in our nation's memory."

Ford was the longest living president, followed by
Ronald Reagan, who also died at 93. Ford had been living at his desert home in Rancho Mirage, Calif., about 130 miles east of Los Angeles.

"I was deeply saddened this evening when I heard of Jerry Ford's death," former first lady Nancy Reagan said in a statement. "Ronnie and I always considered him a dear friend and close political ally.

"His accomplishments and devotion to our country are vast, and even long after he left the presidency he made it a point to speak out on issues important to us all," she said.

Ford was an accidental president, Nixon's hand-picked successor, a man of much political experience who had never run on a national ticket. He was as open and straightforward as Nixon was tightly controlled and conspiratorial.

Minutes after Nixon resigned in disgrace over the Watergate scandal and flew into exile, Ford took office and famously declared: "Our long national nightmare is over."

But he revived the debate over Watergate a month later by granting Nixon a pardon for all crimes he committed as president. That single act, it was widely believed, cost Ford election to a term of his own in 1976, but it won praise in later years as a courageous act that allowed the nation to move on.

The Vietnam War ended in defeat for the U.S. during his presidency with the fall of Saigon in April 1975. In a speech as the end neared, Ford said: "Today, America can regain the sense of pride that existed before Vietnam. But it cannot be achieved by refighting a war that is finished as far as America is concerned." Evoking Abraham Lincoln, he said it was time to "look forward to an agenda for the future, to unify, to bind up the nation's wounds."

Ford also earned a place in the history books as the first unelected vice president, chosen by Nixon to replace Spiro Agnew, who also was forced from office by scandal.

He was in the White House only 895 days, but changed it more than it changed him.

Even after two women tried separately to kill him, the presidency of Jerry Ford remained open and plain.

Not imperial. Not reclusive. And, of greatest satisfaction to a nation numbed by Watergate, not dishonest.

Even to millions of Americans who had voted two years earlier for Richard Nixon, the transition to Ford's leadership was one of the most welcomed in the history of the democratic process — despite the fact that it occurred without an election.

After the Watergate ordeal, Americans liked their new president — and first lady Betty, whose candor charmed the country.

They liked her for speaking openly about problems of young people, including her own daughter; they admired her for not hiding that she had a mastectomy — in fact, her example caused thousands of women to seek breast examinations.

And she remained one of the country's most admired women even after the Fords left the White House when she was hospitalized in 1978 and said she had become addicted to drugs and alcohol she took for painful arthritis and a pinched nerve in her neck. Four years later she founded the Betty Ford Center in Rancho Mirage, a substance abuse facility next to Eisenhower Medical Center.

Ford slowed down in recent years. He had been hospitalized in August 2000 when he suffered one or more small strokes while attending the Republican National Convention in Philadelphia.

The following year, he joined former presidents Carter, Bush and Clinton at a memorial service in Washington three days after the Sept. 11 attacks. In June 2004, the four men and their wives joined again at a funeral service in Washington for former President Reagan. But in November 2004, Ford was unable to join the other former presidents at the dedication of the Clinton presidential library in Little Rock, Ark.

In January, Ford was hospitalized with pneumonia for 12 days. He wasn't seen in public until April 23, when President Bush was in town and paid a visit to the Ford home. Bush, Ford and Betty posed for photographers outside the residence before going inside for a private get-together.

The intensely private couple declined reporter interview requests and were rarely seen outside their home in Rancho Mirage's gated Thunderbird Estates, other than to attend worship services at the nearby St. Margaret's Episcopal Church in Palm Desert.

In a long congressional career in which he rose to be House Republican leader, Ford lit few fires. In the words of Congressional Quarterly, he "built a reputation for being solid, dependable and loyal — a man more comfortable carrying out the programs of others than in initiating things on his own."

When Agnew resigned in a bribery scandal in October 1973, Ford was one of four finalists to succeed him: Texan John Connally, New York's Nelson Rockefeller and California's Ronald Reagan.

"Personal factors enter into such a decision," Nixon recalled for a Ford biographer in 1991. "I knew all of the final four personally and had great respect for each one of them, but I had known Jerry Ford longer and better than any of the rest.

"We had served in Congress together. I had often campaigned for him in his district," Nixon continued. But Ford had something the others didn't: he would be easily confirmed by Congress, something that could not be said of Rockefeller, Reagan and Connally.

So Ford it was. He became the first vice president appointed under the 25th amendment to the Constitution.

On Aug. 9, 1974, after seeing Nixon off, Ford assumed the office. The next morning, he still made his own breakfast and padded to the front door in his pajamas to get the newspaper.

Said a ranking Democratic congressman: "Maybe he is a plodder, but right now the advantages of having a plodder in the presidency are enormous."

It was rare that Ford was ever as eloquent as he was for those dramatic moments of his swearing-in at the White House.

"My fellow Americans," he said, "our long national nightmare is over. Our Constitution works. Our great republic is a government of laws and not of men. Here the people rule."

And, true to his reputation as unassuming Jerry, he added: "I am acutely aware that you have not elected me as your president by your ballots. So I ask you to confirm me with your prayers."

For Ford, a full term was not to be. He survived an intraparty challenge from Ronald Reagan only to lose to Democrat Jimmy Carter in November. In the campaign, he ignored Carter's record as governor of Georgia and concentrated on his own achievements as president.

Carter won 297 electoral votes to his 240. After Reagan came back to defeat Carter in 1980, the two former presidents became collaborators, working together on joint projects.

Even as president, Ford often talked with reporters several times a day. He averaged 200 outside speeches a year as House Republican leader, a pace he kept up as vice president and diminished, seemingly, only slightly as chief executive. He kept speaking after leaving the White House, generally for fees of $15,000 to $20,000.

Ford was never asked to the White House for a social event during Reagan's eight years as president.

In office, Ford's living tastes were modest. When he became vice president, he chose to remain in the same Alexandria, Va., home — unpretentious except for a swimming pool — that he shared with his family as a congressman.

After leaving the White House, however, he took up residence in the desert resort area of Rancho Mirage, picked up $1 million for his memoir and another $1 million in a five-year NBC television contract, and served on a number of corporate boards. By 1987, he was on eight such boards, at fees up to $30,000 a year, and was consulting for others, at fees up to $100,000. After criticism, he cut back on such activity.

At a joint session after becoming president, Ford addressed members of Congress as "my former colleagues" and promised "communication, conciliation, compromise and cooperation." But his relations with Congress did not always run smoothly.

He vetoed 66 bills in his barely two years as president. Congress overturned 12 Ford vetoes, more than for any president since Andrew Johnson.

In his memoir, "A Time to Heal," Ford wrote, "When I was in the Congress myself, I thought it fulfilled its constitutional obligations in a very responsible way, but after I became president, my perspective changed."

Some suggested the pardon was prearranged before Nixon resigned, but Ford, in an unusual appearance before a congressional committee in October 1974, said, "There was no deal, period, under no circumstances." The committee dropped its investigation.

Ford's standing in the polls dropped dramatically when he pardoned Nixon unconditionally. But an ABC News poll taken in 2002 in connection with the 30th anniversary of the Watergate break-in found that six in 10 said the pardon was the right thing to do.

The late Democrat Clark Clifford spoke for many when he wrote in his memoirs, "The nation would not have benefited from having a former chief executive in the dock for years after his departure from office. His disgrace was enough."

The decision to pardon Nixon won Ford a John F. Kennedy Profile in Courage Award in 2001, and Sen. Edward M. Kennedy (news, bio, voting record), acknowledging he had criticized Ford at the time, called the pardon "an extraordinary act of courage that historians recognize was truly in the national interest."

While Ford had not sought the job, he came to relish it. He had once told Congress that even if he succeeded Nixon he would not run for president in 1976. Within weeks of taking the oath, he changed his mind.

He was undaunted even after the two attempts on his life in September 1975. Lynette "Squeaky" Fromme, a 26-year-old follower of Charles Manson, was arrested after she aimed a semiautomatic pistol at Ford on Sept. 5 in Sacramento, Calif. A
Secret Service agent grabbed her and Ford was unhurt.

Seventeen days later, Sara Jane Moore, a 45-year-old political activist, was arrested in San Francisco after she fired a gun at the president. Again, Ford was unhurt.

Both women are serving life terms in federal prison.

Asked at a news conference to recite his accomplishments, Ford replied: "We have restored public confidence in the White House and in the executive branch of government."

As to his failings, he responded, "I will leave that to my opponents. I don't think there have been many."

Ford spent most of his boyhood in Grand Rapids, Mich.

He was born Leslie King on July 14, 1913, in Omaha, Neb. His parents were divorced when he was less than a year old, and his mother returned to her parents in Grand Rapids, where she later married Gerald R. Ford Sr. He adopted the boy and renamed him.

Ford was a high school senior when he met his biological father. He was working in a Greek restaurant, he recalled, when a man came in and stood watching.

"Finally, he walked over and said, `I'm your father,'" Ford said. "Well, that was quite a shock." But he wrote in his memoir that he broke down and cried that night and he was left with the image of "a carefree, well-to-do man who didn't really give a damn about the hopes and dreams of his firstborn son."

Ford played center on the University of Michigan's 1932 and 1933 national champion football teams. He got professional offers from the Detroit Lions and the Green Bay Packers, but chose to study law at Yale, working his way through as an assistant varsity football coach and freshman boxing coach.

Ford got his first exposure to national politics at Yale, working as a volunteer in Wendell L. Willkie's 1940 Republican campaign for president. After World War II service with the Navy in the Pacific, he went back to practicing law in Grand Rapids and became active in Republican reform politics.

His stepfather was the local Republican chairman, and Michigan Sen. Arthur H. Vandenberg was looking for a fresh young internationalist to replace the area's isolationist congressman.

Ford beat Rep. Bartel Jonkman by a 2-to-1 margin in the Republican primary and then went on to win the election with 60.5 percent of the vote, the lowest margin he ever got.

He had proposed to Elizabeth Bloomer, a dancer and fashion coordinator, earlier that year, 1948. She became one of his hardest-working campaigners and they were married shortly before the election. They had three sons, Michael, John and Steven, and a daughter, Susan.

Ford was the last surviving member of the Warren Commission, which investigated the assassination of President Kennedy in 1963 and concluded that Lee Harvey Oswald was the lone assassin.

Clifford, an adviser to presidents since Harry Truman, summed up his legacy: "About his brief presidency there is little that can be said. In almost every way, it was a caretaker government trying to bind up the wounds of Watergate and get through the most traumatic act of the Indochina drama.

"Ford ... was a likable person who deserves credit for accomplishing the one goal that was most important, to reunite the nation after the trauma of Watergate and give us a breathing spell before we picked a new president."

[FilmFan720]

No matter what my political beliefs, or no matter how much I disagree with a person's actions, I always feel sad at any person's death, especially a US President. He served this nation, and should be remembered for that sacrifice he made.

Plus, I will always respect and honor him for pardoning Pres. Nixon, an action which cost him election and must grief at the time, but was a necessary evil to allow this nation to regain its composure and move forwards instead of backwards. He always seemed to me a man not interested in political scheming, but doing what he believed was right, and most importantly what would be best for his country.

Rest in Peace, Mr. President.