In Memory of President Gerald R. Ford

President Gerald R. Ford was much more formidable a force in American politics than that for which he is given credit. Known as a lightweight who was not particularly eloquent nor adept at communication, Mr. Ford was nonetheless one of the major movers and shakers in government during the 20th century.

The mainstream media portrayed him as a bumbling simpleton who was forever falling down, bumping his head, hitting stray golf balls into the gallery, and the like. To this day I believe that this portrayal was a deliberate scheme. It was clear that by the early to mid 1970s the media and the eastern political establishment wanted a Democrat in office (they never got over Nixon winning twice). Ford didn't help himself by failing to take more care in not getting caught in compromising mishaps that would surely wind up on the evening news.

I distinctly remember Bob Sheiffer at CBS providing the lead story on Ford one evening by telling Walter Cronkite, 'The President bumped his head on Air Force One as he was leaving the plane,' and of course, the video camera was there to catch the dreaded act.

To this day I still wonder why that was news.

Nonetheless, Mr. Ford helped to shape the political landscape during the 20th century as a powerful member of Congress who was respected on both sides of the aisle. It was no fluke that Nixon chose Ford to replace Spiro Agnew when Agnew was forced to resign over a scandal during the time he was a Governor. Nixon felt that Ford's skills as a consensus-builder would be a welcome addition to the White House team.

Little did Nixon know that within a few short months he would be involved in his own scandal, resulting in his resignation and leading to Mr. Ford ascending to the Presidency.

Mr. Ford's 'regular guy' image, his impeccable sense of ethics, decency, and fairness, and his clean reputation were exactly what the nation needed in the aftermath of Watergate.

Ironically, it was that very sense of fairness and decency that led to his pardon of Nixon, which brought him the wrath of the electorate. The public never brought itself to forgive him for an action that today is viewed as the right thing to do. Ford at the time was convinced it was the right thing to do in spite of public opinion. Unfortunately he was part of a small minority.

And this is the enduring legacy of the man--decency, fairness, integrity that could not be swayed, not even by the threat of losing the support of the electorate.

I admit that I was never in the Ford camp, with the exception of the 1976 campaign against Jimmy Carter. I had been a Reagan man right from the beginning. My view was that Ford's support of the Nixon/Kissinger doctrine of 'detente' with the Soviet Union was a big mistake and that only Reagan's insistence that we outright win the Cold War was the only course of action that would result in the fall of the USSR. History proves Reagan to be correct.

Yet I voted for Ford in 1976 (Reagan lost to Ford in the Republican primaries) and believed that his decency and sense of fairness were of great value to the country.

The United States of America is a better place because Gerald R. Ford was part of its governance.