Gerald R. Ford, 38th U.S. President, Dies at Age 93
26 Dec. 2006- Gerald R. Ford, who became the 38th U.S. president in 1974 when the Watergate scandal forced Richard Nixon from office, has died. He was 93.
Ford's pardon of Nixon a month after becoming president hurt his popularity and contributed to his defeat in the 1976 election.
``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,'' President George W. Bush said today at his ranch in Crawford, Texas. Ford led with ``common sense and kind instincts,'' Bush said.
Former first lady Betty Ford made the announcement of her husband's death late yesterday at their home in Rancho Mirage, California, where the former president died. No cause of death was given.
Ford, in declining health, was hospitalized several times in the past year and most recently in October for tests at the Eisenhower Medical Center in California. He was the longest-lived former U.S. president, overtaking Ronald Reagan on Nov. 12. who was also 93 years old when he died.
Ford ``died peacefully'' at 6:45 p.m. California time, his office said in a statement said.
Betty Ford said through a spokesman that the family was ``touched beyond words'' by the tributes paid to her husband. ``These kindnesses have made this difficult time more bearable,'' Mrs. Ford said through spokesman Gregory Willard.
Funeral Ceremonies
Ford's funeral ceremonies will start Dec. 29 with a private, family service at St. Margaret's Church in Palm Desert, California, Willard said. Following that will be a visitation period for close friends, and then a period of public repose.
On Dec. 30, Ford will be flown from the Palm Springs, California, airport to Andrews Air Force Base outside Washington, D.C. After a ceremony there, the casket will be taken in a motorcade to the Capitol, stopping for a time at the World War II Memorial, Willard said.
The casket will be carried into the Capitol up the east steps of the House for a state funeral to begin at about 7 p.m., he said. Ford will then lie in state in the Capitol rotunda before being moved to the National Cathedral for a 10:30 a.m. funeral service on Jan. 2.
After the service, the casket will be taken back to Andrews Air Force Base for a flight to Grand Rapids, Michigan. A short ceremony will follow at the Gerald R. Ford Presidential Museum, followed by a period of public repose, Willard said.
Before the Jan. 3 burial at Ford's presidential library, a final service will be conducted at Grace Episcopal Church, where the Fords were married in 1948. Ford will be entombed on a hillside near the museum, Willard said.
Paying Tribute
Bush ordered the American flag flown at half staff at the White House and all federal buildings for 30 days.
Vice President Richard Cheney, who had served as Ford's chief of staff, said in a statement that Ford was a ``dear friend and mentor'' who ``embodied the best values of a great generation: decency, integrity and devotion to duty.''
Ford became president on Aug. 9, 1974, immediately after Nixon's resignation under threat of impeachment.
``Our long national nightmare is over,'' Ford declared and pledged to rebuild confidence in government institutions and the struggling U.S. economy. ``I assume the presidency under extraordinary circumstances. This is an hour of history that troubles our minds and hurts our hearts.''
Ford projected calm during a period of high inflation, looming energy shortages and a waning war in Southeast Asia. Ford, a Republican, lost his bid to win a full term in 1976 to Democrat Jimmy Carter.
Appointed Vice President
On Inauguration Day, Carter began his speech: ``For myself and for our nation, I want to thank my predecessor for all he has done to heal our land.''
Ford was in his 13th term as a Michigan congressman and was the House Republican leader when Nixon appointed him in December 1973 as vice president. He replaced Spiro Agnew, who quit amid bribery charges stemming from his time in office as Maryland governor. It was the first use of the U.S. Constitution's 25th Amendment to fill a vice presidential vacancy, an amendment Ford helped get enacted.
Nixon resigned rather than face impeachment proceedings over White House attempts to obstruct an investigation into the 1972 burglary of Democratic Party headquarters at the Watergate complex in Washington. Ford was the first, and only, unelected president in the nation's history.
Pardoned Nixon
On Sept. 8, 1974, a month after taking office, he pardoned Nixon for any crimes he might have committed as president, although no formal charges were pending.
Ford told the country in a speech that Watergate was ``an American tragedy.''
``It could go on and on and on, or someone must write the end to it,'' he said. ``I have concluded that only I can do that, and if I can, I must.''
While he was criticized at the time for undermining the inquiry into the Watergate burglary and its cover-up by issuing the pardon, his actions to overcome Watergate were later applauded.
Democratic Senator Edward M. Kennedy of Massachusetts, one of those critics, later recanted and acknowledged as much today. Ford's ``courage and dedication to our country made it possible for us to begin the process of healing,'' Kennedy said.
Ford won the 2001 John F. Kennedy Profile in Courage Award for pardoning Nixon. A bipartisan committee named by the foundation that runs the Kennedy President Library and Museum in Boston made the award.
Dingell Comments
Representative John D. Dingell (news, bio, voting record), a Michigan Democrat who served with Ford in the House, said his former colleague ``rose up and held the country together'' at a time of crisis. ``It will certainly be his legacy.''
``Jerry Ford was the most decent man I ever encountered in public life,'' said former Federal Reserve Board Chairman Alan Greenspan, who was Ford's chief White House economic adviser. ``His reputation has risen year by year since he left office.''
Former President George H.W. Bush said Ford healed the wounds of Watergate. ``It never went to his head that he was president,'' Bush said.
Moving to repair the damage of Nixon's resignation, Ford replaced all but three members of Nixon's Cabinet. In December 1974, congressional majorities backed his choice of former New York Governor Nelson A. Rockefeller as his vice president.
A self-described fiscal conservative, Ford proposed tax cuts and spending limits to deal with a budget deficit. He also pushed through Congress legislative proposals to deregulate the railroad and securities industries.
Vetoed 39 Measures
Ford confronted the Democratic-controlled Congress by vetoing 39 spending-related measures in his first 14 months. The belt-tightening was aimed at ending a recession. Unemployment rose in his first year to 9 percent before falling to 7.8 percent as he left office -- higher than when he started his term.
Meanwhile, gross domestic product, which measures the total output of the nation's goods and services, swung from a 4.7 percent rate of decline in the first quarter of 1975 to 9.3 percent growth a year later, when he campaigned to remain in office.
In foreign policy, Ford was dealt twin setbacks with the collapse of Cambodia and South Vietnam's pro-Western governments in 1975. His approval rating in 1975 rebounded after Marines retrieved a U.S. ship seized by the Cambodian government.
Ford brokered a 1975 truce between Israel and Egypt that installed U.S. observers to separate the two armies. He pursued a policy of detente with China and the Soviet Union, agreeing with Soviet leader Leonid Brezhnev to limit nuclear weapons.
Overhaul Intelligence Gathering
He also signed an executive order to overhaul U.S. intelligence-gathering agencies, including limiting the Central Intelligence Agency's spying powers.
During his 1975 presidential campaign in California, Ford escaped two assassination attempts in 17 days: by Lynette ``Squeaky'' Fromme in Sacramento on Sept. 5, and by Sara Jane Moore in San Francisco on Sept. 22.
Ford was born Leslie Lynch King Jr., in Omaha, Nebraska, on July 14, 1913. He was renamed for his stepfather, Gerald Ford, a paint salesman who married the former president's mother after her divorce.
Ford was the captain of his high school football team in Grand Rapids, Michigan, and a football scholarship took him to the University of Michigan, where he starred as varsity center and played on two national championship football teams. He graduated in 1935 and turned down offers to play professional football to attend Yale Law School, where he also was an assistant football coach. He graduated in the top third of his class in 1941.
Joined Navy
Ford returned to Grand Rapids to practice law, then joined the Navy in April 1942. He saw wartime service in the Pacific on the light aircraft carrier Monterey and was a lieutenant commander when he returned to Grand Rapids early in 1946 to resume law practice and dabble in politics.
Ford was a lawyer before winning election in Michigan's fifth congressional district in 1948, the same year he married Betty Bloomer Warren. The couple had four children.
Ford was re-elected 12 times on a platform of limited government.
In 1963, President Lyndon B. Johnson appointed Ford to the Warren Commission to investigate the assassination of President John F. Kennedy. Two years later, Ford co-wrote a book, ``Portrait of the Assassin,'' on the commission's conclusion that Kennedy was killed in Dallas by a single gunman, Lee Harvey Oswald.
Three Books
Ford went on to write or co-write three books, including his post-Watergate autobiography, ``A Time to Heal,'' in 1979.
After leaving office, Ford was an adviser to American Express Co. and was on the board of Citigroup Inc., Travelers Group Inc. and the NASD.
He spent three days in August 2006 at the Mayo Clinic in Rochester, Minnesota, to get a heart pacemaker and stents in his coronary arteries to improve blood flow. He had a small stroke at the Republican National Convention in Philadelphia in 2000.
Ford's hobbies included skiing, tennis and golf.
Besides his wife, he is survived by their children, Michael, John, Steven and Susan.
Official Pres. Ford bio ~ http://www.whitehouse.gov/history/presidents/gf38.html
Gerald Ford Library and Museum ~ http://www.ford.utexas.edu
