Gerald Rudolph Ford, Jr., (born Leslie Lynch King Jr. on July 14, 1913) was the 38th (1974–1977) President of the United States. Ford also served as the 40th (1973–1974) Vice President. He was the first person appointed to the Vice-Presidency under the terms of the 25th Amendment, and upon succession to the presidency became the first (and to date, only) president in U.S. history to fill that office without having been elected either President or Vice-President. He is also the longest-lived United States president ever, having surpassed Ronald Reagan's record on November 12, 2006.
Ford was born in Omaha, Nebraska. He was originally named Leslie Lynch King, Jr., after his biological father. His parents divorced when he was less than a year old, and when his mother remarried, he was given the name of his step-father, Gerald Rudolff Ford. He later changed the spelling of the middle name. Ford obtained his bachelor's degree from the University of Michigan, where he was a football star. He went on to obtain a law degree from Yale University before serving in the United States Navy during World War II. Returning from the war a confirmed "internationalist", Republican Ford defeated the incumbent in the party primary and was elected to the United States House of Representatives in 1948, representing the Grand Rapids, Michigan area. He was elected House Minority Leader in 1963 and served in the House until 1973. When Spiro Agnew resigned, Ford was appointed Vice President of the United States at the height of the Watergate scandal, which eventually led to Nixon's resignation.
The Ford administration saw the withdrawal of American forces from Vietnam, the execution of the Helsinki Accords, and the continuing specter of inflation and recession. Faced with an overwhelmingly Democratic majority in Congress, the administration was hampered in its ability to pass major legislation, and Ford's vetoes were frequently overridden. Ford was criticized by many for granting a pre-emptive pardon to Nixon, and was subsequently defeated by Democrat Jimmy Carter in the 1976 presidential election.
Early life
left|thumb|Ford with his pet [Boston Terrier, 1916] Ford was born in Omaha, Nebraska on Monday, July 14, 1913 at 12:43 AM CST to Leslie Lynch King and Dorothy Ayer Gardner, and was originally named Leslie Lynch King, Jr. His parents separated before he was born and divorced five months after his birth; he is the only President whose parents have been divorced. Two years later, his mother married Gerald Ford, after whom he was renamed despite never being formally adopted. Raised in Grand Rapids, Michigan, Ford was not aware of his adoption until shortly before turning fifteen. "My stepfather was a magnificent person," Ford stated, "and my mother equally wonderful. So I couldn't have written a better prescription for a superb family upbringing."http://www.americanpresident.org/history/geraldford/ American Presidents, History: Gerald R. Ford.
Ford received a commission as ensign in the U.S. Naval Reserve on 13 April 1942. On 20 April, he reported for active duty to the V-5 instructor school at Annapolis, Maryland. After one month of training, he went to Navy Preflight School in Chapel Hill, North Carolina, where he was one of 83 instructors and taught elementary seamanship, ordnance, gunnery, first aid, and military drill. In addition, he coached in all nine sports that were offered, but mostly in swimming, boxing and football. During the one year, he was at the Preflight School, he was promoted to Lieutenant Junior Grade on 2 June 1942, and to Lieutenant on March 1943.
Applying for sea duty, Ford was sent in May 1943 to the pre-commissioning detachment for a new small aircraft carrier, the USS Monterey, at New York Shipbuilding Corporation, Camden, New Jersey. From the ship's commissioning on 17 June 1943 until the end of December 1944, Ford served as the assistant navigator, Athletic Officer, and antiaircraft battery officer on board the Monterey. While he was on board, the Monterey participated in many actions in the Pacific with the Third and Fifth Fleets during the fall of 1943 and in 1944. In 1943, the carrier helped secure Makin Island in the Gilberts, and participated in carrier strikes against Kavieng, New Ireland in 1943. During the spring of 1944, the Monterey supported landings at Kwajalein and Eniwetok and participated in carrier strikes in the Marianas, Western Carolines, and northern New Guinea, as well as in the Battle of Philippine Sea. After overhaul, from September to November 1944, aircraft from the Monterey launched strikes against Wake Island, participated in strikes in the Philippines and Ryukus, and supported the landings at Leyte and Mindoro.
Although the ship was not damaged by the Japanese forces, the Monterey was one of several ships damaged by the typhoon which hit AdmiralWilliam Halsey's Third Fleet on 18-19 December 1944. The Third Fleet lost three destroyers and over 800 men during the typhoon. The Monterey was damaged by a fire, which was started by several of the ship's aircraft tearing loose from their cables and colliding during the storm. During the storm, Ford narrowly missed being a casualty himself. After Ford left his battle station on the bridge of the ship in the early morning of 18 December, the ship rolled twenty-five degrees which caused Ford to lose his footing and slide toward the edge of the deck. The two inch steel ridge around the edge of the carrier slowed him enough so he could roll and twisted into the catwalk below the deck. As he later stated, "I was lucky; I could have easily gone overboard."
After the fire, the Monterey was declared unfit for service and the crippled carrier reached Ulithi on 21 December before proceding across the Pacific to Bremerton, Washington where it underwent repairs. On Christmas Eve 1944 at Ulithi, Ford was detached from the ship and sent to the Athletic Department of the Navy Pre-Flight School, at Saint Mary's College of California where he was assigned to the Athletic Department until April 1945. One of his duties was to coach football. From end of April 1945 to January 1946, he was on the staff of the Naval Reserve Training Command, Naval Air Station, Glenview, Illinois as the Staff Physical and Military Training Officer. On 3 October 1945, he was promoted to Lieutenant Commander. In January 1946, he was sent to the Separation Center, Great Lakes, Illinois to be processed out. He was released from active duty under honorable conditions on 23 February 1946. On 28 June 1963, the Secretary of the Navy accepted Ford's resignation from the Naval Reserve.
For his naval service, Gerald Ford earned the Asiatic-Pacific Campaign Medal with nine engagement stars for operations in the Gilbert Islands, Bismark Archipelego, Marshal Islands, Asiatic and Pacific carrier raids, Hollandia, Marianas, Western Carolines, Western New Guinea, and the Leyte Operation. He also received the Philippine Liberation with two bronze stars for Leyte and Mindoro, as well as the American Campaign and World War II Victory Medals."Lieutenant Commander Gerald Ford, USNR," U.S. Naval Historical Center, Official Naval Service Bio, accessed 11 September 2006, http://www.history.navy.mil/faqs/faq60-15.htm.
left|thumb|250px|Campaign billboard from 1948 election Following his return from the war, Ford became active in local Republican politics. Grand Rapids supporters urged him to take on Bartel J. Jonkman, the incumbent Republican congressman. Ford had changed his worldview as a result of his military service; "I came back a converted internationalist", Ford stated, "and of course our congressman at that time was an avowed, dedicated isolationist. And I thought he ought to be replaced. Nobody thought I could win. I ended up winning two to one."
Ford's tenure as Vice President was little noted by the media. Instead, reporters were preoccupied by the continuing revelations about criminal acts during the 1972 Presidential elections and allegations of cover-ups within the White House. Ford said little about the Watergate scandal, although he privately expressed his personal disappointment in the President's conduct.http://www.ford.utexas.edu/grf/fordbiop.htm Gerald R. Ford Biography - Gerald R. Ford Presidential Library and Museum. Quote box |align=right |width=35% |quote=I have not sought this enormous responsibility, but I will not shirk it. Those who nominated and confirmed me as Vice President were my friends and are my friends. They were of both parties, elected by all the people and acting under the Constitution in their name. It is only fitting then that I should pledge to them and to you that I will be the President of all the people. |source=Gerald R. Ford, August 9, 1974
The Watergate investigation continued following Ford's appointment until Chief of Staff, Alexander Haig contacted Ford on August 1, 1974, and told him that "smoking gun" evidence had been found. The evidence left little doubt that President Nixon had been a part of the Watergate cover-up. Ford at the time was continuing to reside in the same home he had as a congressman and was waiting on repairs before becoming the first Vice President to move into the new Vice President's official residence at Number One Observatory Circle. However, "Al Haig asked to come over and see me," Ford later related, "to tell me that there would be a new tape released on a Monday, and he said the evidence in there was devastating and there would probably be either an impeachment or a resignation. And he said, 'I'm just warning you that you've got to be prepared, that things might change dramatically and you could become President.' And I said, 'Betty Ford, his wife, I don't think we're ever going to live in the Vice President's house.'"
The Nixon pardon was highly controversial. Critics derided the move and claimed a "corrupt bargain" had been struck between the men. They claimed Ford's pardon was quid pro quo in exchange for Nixon's resignation that elevated Ford to the Presidency. Nixon's chief of staff, Alexander Haig, offered a deal to Ford. Bob Woodward, in his book, Shadow, recounts the Haig deal. Woodward recounts that Haig entered Ford's office on August 1, 1974 while Ford was still Vice President and Nixon had yet to resign. Haig told Ford that there were three pardon options: (1) Nixon could pardon himself and resign, (2) Nixon could pardon his aides involved in Watergate and then resign, or (3) Nixon could agree to leave in return for an agreement that the new president would pardon him. After listing these options, Haig handed Ford various papers; one of these papers included a discussion of the president's legal authority to pardon and another sheet was a draft pardon form that only needed Ford's signature and Nixon's name to make it legal. Woodward summarizes the setting between Haig and Ford as follows: "Even if Haig offered no direct words on his views, the message was almost certainly sent. An emotional man, Haig was incapable of concealing his feelings; those who worked closely with him rarely found him ambiguous." Despite the situation, Ford never accepted the offer from Haig and later decided to pardon Nixon on his own terms. Regardless, historians believe the controversy was one of the major reasons Ford lost the election in 1976. wikisourcepar|Proclamation 4311|The Nixon Ford's first press secretary and close friend Jerald terHorst resigned his post in protest after the announcement of President Nixon's full pardon.
From the prior administration, in addition to longstanding Cold War issues, Ford inherited the on-going détente with both the Soviet Union and the People's Republic of China—and the policy of building relationships with the two communist countries, which had been mutually antagonistic toward each other for many years.
Ford also faced a foreign policy crisis with the Mayaguez Incident. In May 1975, shortly after the Khmer Rouge took power in Cambodia, Cambodians seized the American merchant ship Mayaguez in international waters. Ford dispatched Marines to rescue the crew, but the Marines landed on the wrong island and met unexpectedly stiff resistance just as, unknown to the U.S., the Mayaguez sailors were being released. In the operation, fifty U.S. servicemen were wounded and forty-one killed while approximately sixty Khmer Rouge soldiers were killed.http://www.usmm.org/mayaguez.html Capture and Release of SS Mayaguez by Khmer Rouge forces in May 1975 - United States Marine Merchants.
In the end, Carter won the election, receiving 50.1% of the popular vote and 297 electoral votes compared with 48.0% and 240 electoral votes for Ford. Though he lost, in the three months between the Republican National Convention and the election, Ford managed to close what was once a 34-point Carter lead to a 2-point margin.
Had Ford won the election, he would have been disqualified by the 22nd Amendment from running in 1980, since he served more than 2 years of Nixon's term.
After securing the Republican nomination in 1980, Ronald Reagan gave serious consideration to his former rival Ford as a potential vice-presidential running mate. But negotiations between the Reagan and Ford camps at the Republican National Convention in Detroit were unsuccessful. Ford conditioned his acceptance on Reagan's agreement to an unprecedented "co-presidency," giving Ford the power to control key executive branch appointments (such as Henry Kissinger as Secretary of State and Alan Greenspan as Treasury Secretary). After rejecting these terms, Reagan offered the vice-presidential nomination instead to George H.W. Bush.http://www.hooverdigest.org/004/allen.html Richard V. Allen, How the Bush Dynasty Almost Wasn't, New York Times Magazine, July 30, 2000 - .
*He is, at 93 years of age, one of only four U.S. Presidents to have lived to 90 or more years of age (the others being Reagan, also 93, Herbert Hoover, 90, and John Adams, also 90).
*Gerald and Betty Ford hold the record as the longest-lived First Couple, at ages 93 and 88 respectively. The previous record (calculated using the combined ages of the two spouses) was held by Ronald and Nancy Reagan at ages 93 and 83 respectively at the time of President Reagan's death on June 52004, at which time Gerald and Betty Ford had already tied their record at ages 90 and 86 respectively. Prior to 2003, Harry and Bess Truman, at ages 88 and 87 respectively at the time of President Truman's death in 1972, had held the record for more than 30 years.
* Gerald Ford was the 38th President to be born as well as the 38th to serve. Richard Nixon was 37th born, 37th to serve, and the 37th to die. John F. Kennedy was the 39th President born, 35th to serve and the 32nd to die. Five of the 43 presidents (Carter, Ford, George H.W. Bush, Clinton, and George W. Bush) are still living.
*After leaving office, Ford did a televisionpublic service announcement for the Boy Scouts of America. The advertisement featured a long list of former Boy Scout celebrities, athletes, etc. each stating that when your son joins Scouting there was no guarantee that he would grow up to be a movie star, major league player, astronaut, etc. At the closing, Ford's appearance intentionally surpasses all the others as he says, "When your son joins the Boy Scouts there's no guarantee that he'll grow up to be President... but you never know." In the 1990s, the West Michigan Shores Council renamed itself in honor of the President.
*Ford was characterized in The Simpsons episode "Two Bad Neighbors," having moved in across the street from the family after George H.W. Bush left in disgust. He gets along famously with Homer, inviting him over to watch football, while the two snack on beer and nachos. The two trip simultaneously on the way to Ford's new home, with both muttering "D'oh!" at the same moment, showing both to be accident prone.
* cite book | author=Ford, Gerald R. | year=1987 | title=Humor and the Presidency | id=ISBN * cite book | author=Ford, Gerald R. | year=1965 | title=Portrait of the assassin (Lee Harvey Oswald) | id=ASIN * cite book | author=Ford, Gerald R. | year=1994 | title=Presidential Perspectives from the National Archives | id=ISBN * cite book | author=Ford, Gerald R. | year=1973 | title=Selected Speeches | id=ISBN * cite book | author=Ford, Gerald R. | year=1979 | title=A Time to Heal: The Autobiography of Gerald R. Ford | id=ISBN
Further reading
Personal memoirs and official biographies
* cite book | author=Cannon, James | year=1993 | title=Time and Chance: Gerald R. Ford's Appointment with History | id=ISBN * cite book | author=Ford, Betty | year=1978 | title=The Times of My Life | id=ISBN
Administration officials' publications
* cite book | author=Casserly, John J. | year=1977 | title=The Ford White House: Diary of a Speechwriter | id=ISBN * cite book | author=Coyne, John R. | year=1979 | title=Fall in and Cheer | id=ISBN * cite book | author=Thompson, Kenneth (ed.) | year=1980 | title=The Ford Presidency: Twenty-Two Intimate Perspectives of Gerald Ford | id=ISBN * cite book | author=Hartmann, Robert T. | year=1980 | title=Palace Politics: An Insider's Account of the Ford Years | id=ISBN * cite book | author=Hersey, John | year=1980 | title=Aspects of the Presidency: Truman and Ford in Office (The President: A Minute-by-Minute Account of a Week in the Life of Gerald Ford) | id=ISBN * cite book | author=Kissinger, Henry A. | year=1999 | title=Years of Renewal | id=ISBN
Outside sources
* cite book | author=Firestone, Bernard J. and Alexej Ugrinsky (eds) | year=1992 | title=Gerald R. Ford and the Politics of Post-Watergate America | id=ISBN * cite book | author=Greene, John Robert | year=1992 | title=The Limits of Power: The Nixon and Ford Administrations | id=ISBN * cite book | author=Greene, John Robert | year=1995 | title=The Presidency of Gerald R. Ford | id=ISBN * cite book | author=Mieczkowski, Yanek | year=2005 | title=Gerald Ford And The Challenges Of The 1970s | id=ISBN * cite book | author=Werth, Barry | year=2006 | title=31 Days: The Crisis That Gave Us the Government We Have Today | id=ISBN
