Ford brought calm to White House after Watergate

Tuesday, January 2, 2007

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Gerald Ford replaced President Nixon when he resigned in 1974 during the scandal surrounding the burglary of Democratic Party offices at the Watergate Hotel.

"He assumed power in a period of great division and turmoil," President Bush said. "For a nation that needed healing and for an office that needed a calm and steady hand, Gerald Ford came along when we needed him most."

In Ford's honor, Bush ordered U.S. flags at all federal government buildings to fly at half-staff for 30 days.

Former President Carter, who defeated Ford in the 1976 presidential race, said Ford "frequently rose above politics by emphasizing the need for bipartisanship and seeking common ground on issues critical to our nation."

"I will always cherish the personal friendship we shared," Carter said.

Incoming House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, D-California, said Ford "assumed office during one of the greatest times of challenge for our nation and provided Americans with the steady leadership and optimism that was his signature."

Democratic Sen. Harry Reid of Nevada, the incoming Senate majority leader, said Ford "was a devoted public servant who led our nation out of one of its darkest hours with grace and bipartisanship."

'Our long national nightmare is over'

Ford was the least likely of presidents, a man brought to power by unprecedented circumstances without seeking the office, at a time when Americans - reeling from the Watergate scandal - were disillusioned and weary.

During his famous address to the nation after assuming office in August 1974, he tried to set a tone of reconciliation and renewal, telling his fellow Americans that "our long national nightmare is over."

Nearly a month later, Ford announced his decision to pardon Nixon, saying he hoped his act would "shut and seal this book" on Watergate.

His enormously controversial decision to pardon Nixon is widely blamed for costing him the 1976 election, which was one of the closest presidential races in U.S. history.

At 93, Ford was the nation's oldest surviving former president and the only president and vice president never to be elected to either office.

His death leaves three surviving former presidents: Bill Clinton, 60, George H.W. Bush, 82, and Carter, 82.

Ford is survived by his wife, Betty, 88; three sons, Michael, Jack and Steven; and a daughter, Susan.

Background

Ford was born Leslie Lynch King on July 14, 1913, in Omaha, Nebraska. When he was 2 weeks old, his parents divorced, and his mother moved to Grand Rapids, where he grew up. His mother remarried, and he was adopted and renamed after his stepfather, Gerald Rudolph Ford.

After playing football at the University of Michigan and serving on an aircraft carrier in the Navy during World War II, Ford was elected to the U.S. House in 1948 as a Republican, representing a district that included Grand Rapids, where he grew up. He spent 25 years in Congress, working his way up to minority leader in 1965.

Ford's ascendancy to the White House was arguably the most unlikely in U.S. history. In October 1973, Vice President Spiro Agnew resigned after pleading no contest to tax evasion. Nixon, ensnared in the rising Watergate scandal, asked the well-respected Ford to leave Congress to replace Agnew, and he accepted.

In September 1974, Ford granted Nixon a pardon, sparing the former president the prospect of going to prison. The public and political backlash was angry and bitter, with Ford accused of making a tawdry deal with Nixon to secure the White House for himself.

Ford always denied that any deal had been struck. But the pardon colored the rest of his presidency.

In the fall of 1975, Ford's presidency was rocked by two assassination attempts within less than three weeks.

Even though he hadn't sought the presidency, Ford decided he wanted to stay in the White House and ran for election to a full term in 1976. It was an uphill battle from the start, and it ended in defeat to Carter.

Ford: Iraq war justifications 'big mistake'

Ford kept a relatively low profile in his life after the presidency, rarely commenting publicly on his successors.

But in a 2004 interview never before published until this week, Ford told the Washington Post's Bob Woodward that Bush and his chief advisers "made a big mistake" with their justifications for the Iraq war.

"I don't think, if I had been president - on the basis of the facts as I saw them publicly - I don't think I would have ordered the Iraqi war," Ford said in a tape of the interview.

Woodward told CNN's Larry King the interview was not to be used until he had written a planned book about Ford or until the former president died.

Asked to respond to Ford's comments, deputy White House press secretary Dana said the administration and Bush are "focused on grieving" right now and "keeping the family in our prayers."