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Former President Gerald Ford Dies (AP, 12/26/06)

Gerald R. Ford, who picked up the pieces of Richard Nixon's scandal-shattered White House as the 38th and only unelected president in America's history, has died, his wife said. He was 93.

Details on his death Tuesday were not immediately available.

Gerald Ford dies at 93 (Mark Feeney, December 27, 2006, Boston Globe)

The burden of Nixon's legacy extended beyond Watergate. On Oct. 8, Mr. Ford unveiled his WIN program, "Whip Inflation Now," but it had little effect, and high unemployment as well as rising prices dogged his time in office. What was perhaps the administration's darkest hour came in April 1975 with the collapse of the US-supported regime in South Vietnam. The image of helicopters frantically evacuating refugees from the roof of the Saigon embassy symbolized declining US power.

Aware of the perception of US helplessness, Mr. Ford ordered on May 14 the rescue of the crew of a US merchant ship, the Mayaguez, which had been seized by Cambodia. The ship and its crew were recovered, though at the cost of 41 American lives. Mr. Ford regarded the rescue as one of the proudest moments of his presidency, and the ship's wheel is displayed at the Gerald R. Ford Museum in Grand Rapids.

Retaining Henry Kissinger as secretary of state, Mr. Ford continued Nixon's policy of detente with the Soviet Union. He held a summit with Soviet leader Leonid Brezhnev in Vladivostok in November. His refusal to meet with exiled Soviet author Alexander Solzhenitsyn drew widespread criticism in July 1975. A few weeks later, Mr. Ford attended in Helsinki the 35-nation Conference on Security and Cooperation in Europe, the largest gathering of European heads of state since the Congress of Vienna in 1815, and signed the Helsinki Accords on human rights. Mr. Ford also continued detente with China, journeying to Beijing in the late fall of 1975.

Mr. Ford's foreign policy made him unpopular with the right wing of his party, as had selecting former New York governor Nelson Rockefeller to succeed him as vice president. Former California governor Reagan announced he would oppose Mr. Ford for the 1976 Republican presidential nomination. At first, it seemed a futile quest, but Reagan's focus on the prospective "giveaway" of the Panama Canal energized his campaign. He came within 59 votes of denying Mr. Ford the nomination at the Republican Convention in Kansas City.

It was the end of an era in Republican politics: the last stand of the Midwestern-based party of the past, barely eking out a victory over the Sunbelt-based party of the future. Reagan's unenthusiastic support hindered Mr. Ford in the fall campaign.

...how inconsequential this former president was, particularly in light of James Brown's passing. Even in political terms the singer mattered more.

MORE:
Ford dies at 93 (Bill Nichols and Tom Vanden Brook, 12/26/06, USA TODAY)
Gerald R. Ford, 93, Dies; Led in Watergate's Wake (J.Y. Smith and Lou Cannon, 12/27/06, The Washington Post)
Gerald Ford, 38th President, Dies at 93 (JAMES M. NAUGHTON and ADAM CLYMER, 12/27/06, NY Times)
Gerald Ford dies at 93: Sworn in after Nixon resigned, new president helped nation recover (Robert L. Jackson, December 27, 2006, LA Times)

Untainted himself by Watergate, Ford was left the task of restoring public confidence in an institution badly damaged by the corrosive constitutional crisis that, until Nixon's resignation, was spiraling toward the president's impeachment and conviction in the Senate.

But, after serving barely a month as president, Ford made the controversial decision to grant Nixon a blanket pardon for any crimes he may have committed while in office. Many thought Ford's move fueled national cynicism about government and the officials who ran it. Others thought it was the correct decision to move the country past Watergate.

Ford defended his actions by saying he had hoped to end the bitter debate over whether to prosecute Nixon, which had become a serious distraction for the White House. He conceded after his narrow defeat by Carter in 1976, however, that the pardon had had "an adverse impact" on his popular support, although he maintained that he had made the "right decision."

Ford took over a disoriented and virtually immobilized administration at a time of mounting problems. Abroad, the long, costly U.S. military presence in Southeast Asia was nearing an end. At home, an economy warped by inflation and energy shortages was sliding into a recession.

The new president sought to distinguish his habits from the perception that his predecessor ran an imperial presidency. Ford replaced Nixon's aides, and White House officials became more accessible than they had been in years. Trust and civility began to reappear in White House relations with Congress and the public.

One morning, he invited the White House press corps to chat with him while he ate a typical breakfast. As photographers snapped away, Ford sliced and buttered his own English muffins in the manner of the Upper Midwesterner he was.

Although Ford defended the American commitment in Southeast Asia after most U.S. officeholders had written it off as political poison, he showed early sensitivity as president to the domestic divisions left by the unpopular conflict.

To promote "the rebuilding of peace among ourselves," he initiated a conditional clemency plan that he said would give draft dodgers and deserters a chance to "work their way back" to full citizenship.

Supporters praised Ford for integrity, openness and stubborn determination. His detractors called him unimaginative and outdated, an accidental president unqualified for the White House. A public perception of Ford as a fumbler took shape after a series of minor accidents was exploited in derisive commentary and cartoons.

He survived two attempts on his life. Both occurred in California in the same month — September 1975.

On the morning of Sept. 5, a young woman named Lynette "Squeaky" Fromme, a member of the Charles Manson family who had not been involved in Manson-related murders, aimed a borrowed .45-caliber pistol at Ford as he crossed a park near the state Capitol in Sacramento. The gun misfired as a Secret Service agent grabbed her arm.

Less than three weeks later, on Sept. 22, Sara Jane Moore, later diagnosed as psychologically disturbed, fired a shot at Ford from across the street as he emerged from the St. Francis Hotel in San Francisco. A retired Marine who saw Moore raise the gun struck her arm and deflected the shot. Again, Ford was not injured.

Both women were convicted for the attempted assassinations and were sentenced to life imprisonment.

But more fundamental problems confronted Ford's administration and, indirectly, his candidacy for an elected presidential term of his own.

Although the end of the Vietnam War in May 1975 meant that the nation was technically at peace for the first time in 11 years, international tensions continued. The administration was in a drawn-out confrontation with Congress on military posture, foreign policy and controls over covert intelligence operations.

On the foreign policy front, Ford — with help from holdover Secretary of State Henry A. Kissinger — played a leading role in the Helsinki Accords, in which the Soviet Union in 1975 agreed to basic freedoms of religion and conscience for all peoples. Although some dismissed the accords as worthless, some historians now believe they paved the way for later democratic reforms among the Soviet people.

Domestically, Ford sought to slay the twin beasts of a deepening recession and ballooning inflation with an economic program that was largely ineffective. He dubbed it "Whip Inflation Now," using the acronym WIN. Unemployment in 1975 had reached 9.2%, a 34-year high, and inflation was at 11%.

Ford offered everyone in the nation a WIN button to encourage support for his campaign for such voluntary measures as cost-cutting by businesses and compliance with a 55-mph speed limit to reduce reliance on foreign oil. Soon there were WIN parades, WIN work projects and WIN flags.

But high unemployment continued into the 1976 election year. And, although the pall of Watergate was largely lifted, basic policy directions were little changed from the Nixon era.

The Ford presidency: Gerald Ford, who took over from a disgraced Richard Nixon, led the U.S. out of the shadow of Watergate. (LA Times, December 27, 2006)

Ford will be remembered most for one act: his pardon of Nixon, just one month after the resignation. Ford wanted to govern as the president who led his nation out of the long shadow of Watergate. Yet his ill-timed and ill-considered pardon actually drew the shadow of Watergate over Ford's own presidency, destroying the Republican Party's chances in midterm elections that year and perhaps contributing to Ford's reelection loss to Jimmy Carter in 1976.

The pardon was a mistake, inconsistent with the fundamental principle that everyone, including the president, is equal before the law.

Posted by Orrin Judd at December 27, 2006 12:02 AM