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Gerald Rudolph Ford, Jr. (born July 14 , 1913 )
(born Leslie Lynch King, Jr., renamed after
adoption) was the fortieth ( 1973 - 1974 ) Vice
President and the thirty-eighth ( 1974 - 1977 )
President of the United States. He remains the only
President to serve without being elected to either
the presidency or vice presidency.
Order: 38th President
Term of Office: August 9, 1974 - January 20, 1977
Rise to the Presidency
Ford was a member of
the House of Representatives for 24 years from 1949
- 1973, and became Minority Leader of the House.
After Vice President Spiro Agnew resigned during
Richard Nixon 's presidency, on October 10, 1973,
Nixon appointed Ford to take Agnew's place. The
United States Senate voted 92 to 3 to confirm Ford
on November 27, 1973 and on December 6, the House
confirmed him 387 to 35.
When Nixon then resigned in the wake of the
Watergate scandal, Ford assumed the presidency,
proclaiming that "our long national nightmare is
over". One month later, Ford gave Nixon a blanket
pardon for any crimes he might have committed while
President or indeed anything else he might have done
- a move that many historians believe cost him
election in 1976.
Presidency
The economy was a
great concern during the Ford administration. In
response to rising inflation, Ford went before the
American public on television in October, 1974 and
asked them to "whip inflation now" (WIN); as part of
this program, he urged people to wear "WIN" buttons.
However, most people recognized this as simply a
public relations gimmick without offering any
effective means of solving the underlying problem.
At the time inflation was around 7%, a relatively
modest number in restrospect, but still enough to
discourage investment and push capital overseas and
into government bonds.
In
the aftermath of Watergate, the Democrats scored
major gains in both the House and the Senate in the
1974 elections. Ford and Congress battled over
legislation, with Ford vetoing scores of
Democrat-supported bills.
The
economic focus began to change as the country sank
into a mild recession , and in March, 1975, Ford and
Congress signed into law income tax rebates to help
boost the economy.
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 an American merchant ship, the 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 US, the Mayaguez sailors were
being released. In all phases of the operation,
fifty service men were wounded and forty-one killed,
including three men believed to have been left
behind alive and subsequently executed and
twenty-three Air Force personnel killed earlier
while enroute to the staging area at Utapao,
Thailand. It is believed that approximately sixty
Khmer Rouge soldiers were killed out of a land and
sea force of about 300.
While in Sacramento, California on September 5,
1975, a follower of incarcerated cult leader Charles
Manson named Lynette "Squeaky" Fromme attempted to
assassinate Ford, but was thwarted by a Secret
Service agent. Seventeen days later another woman,
Sara Jane Moore, also tried to kill Ford.
It
is believed that Ford's pardoning of Nixon, along
with the continuing economic problems, may have cost
him the election of 1976 . His campaign may also
have been hampered by a strong challenge that year
for the nomination in his party by Ronald Reagan. He
also made a major gaffe during the campaign when he
insisted Eastern Europe was not occupied by the
Soviets.
During his tenure in the House of Representatives,
Ford was chosen to serve on the Warren Commission, a
special task force set up to investigate the causes
of, and quell rumors regarding the assassination of
President John F. Kennedy. The Commission eventually
concluded that Lee Harvey Oswald had acted alone in
killing the President, a conclusion sometimes
disparaged by conspiracy theorists as the " Lone Nut
Theory ". Today Ford is the only surviving member of
the Commission, and continues to stand behind its
conclusions.
Ford grew up in Michigan and played football for the
University of Michigan. Despite his athleticism,
Ford had a not-entirely deserved reputation for
being very clumsy. Television footage often showed
him stumbling down the stairs, bumping his head on
the doorway of Air Force One , or walking into other
people. This stereotype was greatly popularized by a
series of skits on Saturday Night Live featuring
Chevy Chase who portrayed Ford as a man who was
literally incapable of taking a single step without
falling over or destroying something. Many of Ford's
supporters have since denounced this stereotype as
unfair, saying the President was no more clumsy than
any normal person—except his blunders were just far
more visible and popularized.
At
the 1980 Republican National Convention, Ford was
nearly nominated to return to service as Vice
President under nominee Ronald Reagan. On the day a
Vice President was to be nominated however, Reagan
changed his mind and chose George H. W. Bush, who
had rivaled him for the presidential nomination.
While attending the 2000 Republican convention, Ford
suffered a mild stroke, but has subsequently
recovered.
The
Gerald R. Ford International Airport in Grand Rapids,
Michigan was named after him.
Supreme Court appointments
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