Swearing-in Warren Burger in the White House
East Room, while Betty Ford looks on. When Nixon resigned on August 9, 1974, Ford automatically assumed the presidency, taking the oath of office in the
East Room of the White House. This made him the only person to become the nation's chief executive without being
elected to the presidency or the vice presidency. Immediately afterward, he spoke to the assembled audience in a speech that was broadcast live to the nation, noting the peculiarity of his position. He later declared that "our long national nightmare is over".
Nominating Rockefeller On August 20, Ford nominated former New York Governor
Nelson Rockefeller to fill the vice presidency he had vacated. Rockefeller's top competitor had been
George H. W. Bush. Rockefeller underwent extended hearings before Congress, which caused embarrassment when it was revealed he made large gifts to senior aides, such as
Henry Kissinger. Although conservative Republicans were not pleased that Rockefeller was picked, most of them voted for his confirmation, and his nomination passed both the House and Senate. Some, including
Barry Goldwater, voted against him.
Pardon of Nixon hearing in reference to his pardon of Richard Nixon. On September 8, 1974, Ford issued
Proclamation 4311, which gave Nixon a full and unconditional
pardon for any crimes he might have committed against the United States while president. In a televised broadcast to the nation, Ford explained that he felt the pardon was in the best interests of the country, and that the Nixon family's situation "is a tragedy in which we all have played a part. It could go on and on and on, or someone must write the end to it. I have concluded that only I can do that, and if I can, I must." Ford's decision to pardon Nixon was highly controversial. Critics derided the move and said a "
corrupt bargain" had been struck between the two men, According to
Bob Woodward, Nixon Chief of Staff Alexander Haig proposed a pardon deal to Ford. He later decided to pardon Nixon for other reasons, primarily the friendship he and Nixon shared. Regardless, historians believe the controversy was one of the major reasons Ford lost the
1976 presidential election, an observation with which Ford agreed. In the months following the pardon, Ford often declined to mention President Nixon by name, referring to him in public as "my predecessor" or "the former president". When Ford was pressed on the matter on a 1974 trip to California, White House correspondent
Fred Barnes recalled that he replied "I just can't bring myself to do it." After Ford left the White House in January 1977, he privately justified his pardon of Nixon by carrying in his wallet a portion of the text of
Burdick v. United States, a 1915
U.S. Supreme Court decision which stated that a pardon indicated a presumption of guilt, and that acceptance of a pardon was tantamount to a confession of that guilt. In 2001, the
John F. Kennedy Presidential Library and Museum awarded the John F. Kennedy
Profile in Courage Award to Ford for his pardon of Nixon. In presenting the award to Ford, Senator
Ted Kennedy said that he had initially been opposed to the pardon, but later decided that history had proven Ford to have made the correct decision.
Draft dodgers and deserters On September 16 (shortly after pardoning Nixon), Ford issued Presidential Proclamation 4313, which introduced a conditional
amnesty program for military deserters and Vietnam War
draft dodgers who had fled to countries such as Canada. The conditions of the amnesty required that those reaffirm their allegiance to the United States and serve two years working in a public service job or a total of two years service for those who had served less than two years of honorable service in the military. The program for the Return of Vietnam Era Draft Evaders and Military Deserters established a Clemency Board to review the records and make recommendations for receiving a presidential pardon and a change in
military discharge status.
Full pardon for draft dodgers came during the
Presidency of Jimmy Carter.
Administration When Ford assumed office, he inherited Nixon's
Cabinet. During his brief administration, he replaced all members except
Secretary of State Kissinger and
Secretary of the Treasury William E. Simon. Political commentators have referred to Ford's dramatic reorganization of his Cabinet in the fall of 1975 as the "
Halloween Massacre". One of Ford's appointees,
William Thaddeus Coleman Jr.—the
United States Secretary of Transportation—was the second Black man to serve in a presidential cabinet (after
Robert C. Weaver) and the first appointed in a Republican administration. Ford selected George H. W. Bush as
Chief of the US Liaison Office to the People's Republic of China in 1974, and then
Director of the
Central Intelligence Agency in late 1975. Ford's transition chairman and first Chief of Staff was former congressman and ambassador
Donald Rumsfeld. In 1975, Rumsfeld was named by Ford as the youngest-ever
United States Secretary of Defense. Ford chose a young
Wyoming politician,
Dick Cheney, to replace Rumsfeld as his new Chief of Staff; Cheney became the
campaign manager for Ford's
1976 presidential campaign.
Midterm elections The 1974 Congressional midterm elections took place in the wake of the Watergate scandal and less than three months after Ford assumed office. The Democratic Party turned voter dissatisfaction into large gains in the
House elections, taking 49 seats from the Republican Party, increasing their majority to 291 of the 435 seats. This was one more than the number needed (290) for a two-thirds majority, the number necessary to override a presidential veto or to propose a constitutional amendment. Perhaps due in part to this fact, the
94th Congress overrode the highest percentage of vetoes since
Andrew Johnson was President of the United States (1865–1869). Even Ford's former, reliably Republican House seat was won by a Democrat,
Richard Vander Veen, who defeated
Robert VanderLaan. In the
Senate elections, the Democratic majority became 61 in the 100-seat body.
Domestic policy Inflation , 1975 The
economy was a great concern during the Ford administration. One of the first acts the new president took to deal with the economy was to create, by
Executive Order on September 30, 1974, the Economic Policy Board. In October 1974, in response to rising inflation, Ford went before the American public and asked them to "Whip Inflation Now". As part of this program, he urged people to wear "
WIN" buttons. At the time, inflation was believed to be the primary threat to the economy, more so than growing unemployment; there was a belief that controlling inflation would help reduce unemployment. On October 4, 1974, Ford gave a speech in front of a joint session of Congress; as a part of this speech he kicked off the "WIN" campaign. Over the next nine days, 101,240 Americans mailed in "WIN" pledges. The main point of that speech was to introduce to Congress a one-year, five-percent income tax increase on corporations and wealthy individuals. This plan would also take $4.4 billion out of the budget, bringing federal spending below $300 billion. At the time, inflation was over twelve percent.
Budget ,
Liberty, in the Oval Office, 1974 The federal budget ran a
deficit every year Ford was president. Despite his reservations about how the program ultimately would be funded in an era of tight
public budgeting, Ford signed the
Education for All Handicapped Children Act of 1975, which established
special education throughout the United States. Ford expressed "strong support for full educational opportunities for our handicapped children" according to the official White House press release for the bill signing. The economic focus began to change as the country sank into the worst
recession since the
Great Depression four decades earlier. The focus of the Ford administration turned to stopping the rise in unemployment, which reached nine percent in May 1975. In January 1975, Ford proposed a 1-year tax reduction of $16 billion to stimulate economic growth, along with spending cuts to avoid inflation. When New York City faced bankruptcy in 1975,
Mayor Abraham Beame was unsuccessful in obtaining Ford's support for a federal bailout. The incident prompted the
New York Daily News famous headline "
Ford to City: Drop Dead", referring to a speech in which "Ford declared flatly ... that he would veto any bill calling for 'a federal bail-out of New York City.
Swine flu Ford was confronted with a potential
swine flu pandemic. In the early 1970s, an
influenza strain
H1N1 shifted from a form of flu that affected primarily pigs and crossed over to humans. On February 5, 1976, an
army recruit at
Fort Dix mysteriously died and four fellow soldiers were hospitalized;
health officials announced that "swine flu" was the cause. Soon after, public health officials in the Ford administration urged that every person in the United States be
vaccinated. Although the vaccination program was plagued by delays and public relations problems, some 25% of the population was vaccinated by the time the program was canceled in December 1976. Ford and his family were publicly vaccinated before cameras in October, shortly before he lost the presidential election to Jimmy Carter.
Equal rights and abortion Ford was an outspoken supporter of the
Equal Rights Amendment, issuing Presidential Proclamation no. 4383 in 1975: As president, Ford's position on abortion was that he supported "a federal constitutional amendment that would permit each one of the 50 States to make the choice". This had also been his position as House Minority Leader in response to the 1973 Supreme Court case of
Roe v. Wade, which he opposed. Ford came under criticism when First Lady Betty Ford entered the debate over abortion during an
August 1975 interview for 60 Minutes, in which she stated that
Roe v. Wade was a "great, great decision". During his later life, Ford would identify as
pro-choice.
Foreign policy to sign a joint
communiqué on the SALT treaty during the
Vladivostok Summit, November 1974. Ford continued the détente policy with both the
Soviet Union and China, easing the tensions of the Cold War. Still in place from the Nixon administration was the
Strategic Arms Limitation Treaty (SALT). The thawing relationship brought about by
Nixon's visit to China was reinforced by Ford's own visit in December 1975. The Administration entered into the Helsinki Accords with the Soviet Union in 1975, creating the framework of the
Helsinki Watch, an independent non-governmental organization created to monitor compliance which later evolved into
Human Rights Watch. Ford attended the inaugural meeting of the
Group of Seven (G7) industrialized nations (initially the G5) in 1975 and secured membership for Canada. Ford supported international solutions to issues. "We live in an interdependent world and, therefore, must work together to resolve common economic problems," he said in a 1974 speech. In November 1975, Ford adopted the global
human population control recommendations of
National Security Study Memorandum 200 – a
national security directive initially commissioned by Nixon – as United States policy in the subsequent NSDM 314. The plan explicitly states the goal was population control and not improving the lives of individuals despite instructing organizers to "emphasize development and improvements in the quality of life of the poor", later explaining the projects were "primarily for other reasons". Upon approving the plan, Ford stated "United States leadership is essential to combat population growth, to implement the World Population Plan of Action and to advance United States security and overseas interests". Population control policies were adopted to protect American economic and military interests, with the memorandum arguing that
population growth in
developing countries resulted with such nations gaining global political power, that more citizens posed a risk to accessing foreign natural resources while also making American businesses vulnerable to governments seeking to fund a growing population, and that younger generations born would be prone to
anti-establishment behavior, increasing political instability.
Indonesia and East Timor As South Vietnam collapsed, an anti-communist
Indonesia was seen as essential by the United States. Good relations with the Indonesian government were considered more important than the decolonization process in
East Timor. The Ford administration gave the
Suharto regime in Indonesia economic and military support, even as it
invaded East Timor and
committed a genocide that killed close to a third of the population. One day prior to the invasion, Ford and Kissinger met with Suharto, and they assured him that relations with Indonesia would remain strong regardless of Indonesia's actions and that it would not object to the
annexation of East Timor.
Middle East In the Middle East and eastern Mediterranean, two ongoing international disputes developed into crises. The
Cyprus dispute turned into a crisis with the
Turkish invasion of Cyprus in July 1974, causing extreme strain within the
North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) alliance. In mid-August, the
Greek government withdrew Greece from the NATO military structure; in mid-September, the Senate and House of Representatives overwhelmingly voted to halt military aid to Turkey. Ford, concerned with both the effect of this on Turkish-American relations and the deterioration of security on NATO's eastern front, vetoed the bill. A second bill was then passed by Congress, which Ford also vetoed, fearing that it might impede negotiations in Cyprus, although a compromise was accepted to continue aid until December 10, 1974, provided Turkey would not send American supplies to Cyprus. During Kissinger's shuttle to Israel in early March 1975, a last minute reversal to consider further withdrawal, prompted a cable from Ford to Prime Minister
Yitzhak Rabin, which included: On March 24, Ford informed congressional leaders of both parties of the reassessment of the administration's policies in the Middle East. In practical terms, "reassessment" meant canceling or suspending further aid to Israel. For six months between March and September 1975, the United States refused to conclude any new arms agreements with Israel. Rabin notes it was "an innocent-sounding term that heralded one of the worst periods in American-Israeli relations". The announced reassessments upset the American Jewish community and Israel's well-wishers in Congress. On May 21, Ford "experienced a real shock" when seventy-six U.S. senators wrote him a letter urging him to be "responsive" to Israel's request for $2.59 billion (equivalent to $ billion in ) in military and economic aid. Ford felt truly annoyed and thought the chance for peace was jeopardized. It was, since the September 1974 ban on arms sales to Turkey, the second major congressional intrusion upon the President's foreign policy prerogatives. The following summer months were described by Ford as an American-Israeli "war of nerves" or "test of wills". After much bargaining, the
Sinai Interim Agreement (Sinai II) was formally signed on September 1, and aid resumed.
Vietnam (right) shakes hands with
Mao Zedong, December 2, 1975. One of Ford's greatest challenges was dealing with the continuing
Vietnam War. American offensive operations against North Vietnam had ended with the
Paris Peace Accords, signed on January 27, 1973. The accords declared a cease-fire across both North and South Vietnam, and required the release of American
prisoners of war. The agreement guaranteed the territorial integrity of Vietnam and, like the
Geneva Conference of 1954, called for national elections in the North and South. The Paris Peace Accords stipulated a sixty-day period for the total withdrawal of U.S. forces. The agreements were negotiated by
US National Security Advisor Henry Kissinger and North Vietnamese
Politburo member
Lê Đức Thọ. South Vietnamese President
Nguyen Van Thieu was not involved in the final negotiations, and publicly criticized the proposed agreement. However, anti-war pressures within the United States forced Nixon and Kissinger to pressure Thieu to sign the agreement and enable the withdrawal of American forces. In multiple letters to the South Vietnamese president, Nixon had promised that the United States would defend Thieu's government, should the North Vietnamese violate the accords. In December 1974, months after Ford took office, North Vietnamese forces invaded the province of
Phuoc Long. General
Trần Văn Trà sought to gauge any South Vietnamese or American response to the invasion, as well as to solve logistical issues, before proceeding with the invasion. As North Vietnamese forces advanced, Ford requested Congress approve a $722 million aid package for South Vietnam (equivalent to $ billion in ), funds that had been promised by the Nixon administration. Congress voted against the proposal by a wide margin. Two days later, on April 23, Ford gave a speech at
Tulane University. In that speech, he announced that the Vietnam War was over "...as far as America is concerned". In all, 130,000 Vietnamese refugees came to the United States in 1975. Thousands more escaped in the years that followed.
Mayaguez incident North Vietnam's victory over the South led to a considerable shift in the political winds in Asia, and Ford administration officials worried about a consequent loss of U.S. influence there. The administration proved it was willing to respond forcefully to challenges to its interests in the region when
Khmer Rouge forces seized an American ship in
international waters. The main crisis was the
Mayaguez incident. In May 1975, shortly after the fall of Saigon and the Khmer Rouge conquest of
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, two military transport helicopters carrying the Marines for the assault operation were shot down, and 41 U.S. servicemen were killed and 50 wounded, while approximately 60 Khmer Rouge soldiers were killed. Despite the American losses, the operation was seen as a success in the United States, and Ford enjoyed an 11-point boost in his approval ratings in the aftermath. The Americans killed during the operation became the last to have their names inscribed on the
Vietnam Veterans Memorial wall in Washington, D.C. Some historians have argued that the Ford administration felt the need to respond forcefully to the incident because it was construed as a Soviet plot. Work by Andrew Gawthorpe, published in 2009, based on an analysis of the administration's internal discussions, shows that Ford's national security team understood that the seizure of the vessel was a local, and perhaps even accidental, provocation by an immature Khmer government. Nevertheless, they felt the need to respond forcefully to discourage further provocations by other Communist countries in Asia.
Assassination attempts Ford was the target of two assassination attempts during his presidency. In
Sacramento, California, on September 5, 1975,
Lynette "Squeaky" Fromme, a follower of
Charles Manson, pointed a
Colt .45-caliber handgun at Ford and pulled the trigger at
point-blank range. As she did,
Larry Buendorf, a Secret Service agent, grabbed the gun, and Fromme was taken into custody. She was later convicted of attempted assassination of the President and was sentenced to life in prison; she was paroled on August 14, 2009, after serving 34 years. In reaction to this attempt, the Secret Service began keeping Ford at a more secure distance from anonymous crowds, a strategy that may have saved his life seventeen days later. As he left the
St. Francis Hotel in downtown San Francisco,
Sara Jane Moore, standing in a crowd of onlookers across the street, fired a
.38-caliber revolver at him. The shot missed Ford by a few feet. Before she fired a second round, retired Marine
Oliver Sipple grabbed at the gun and deflected her shot; the bullet struck a wall about six inches above and to the right of Ford's head, then ricocheted and hit a taxi driver, who was slightly wounded. Moore was later sentenced to life in prison. She was paroled on December 31, 2007, after serving 32 years.
Judicial appointments Supreme Court In 1975, Ford appointed
John Paul Stevens as
Associate Justice of the Supreme Court of the United States to replace retiring Justice
William O. Douglas. Stevens had been a judge of the
United States Court of Appeals for the Seventh Circuit, appointed by President Nixon. During his tenure as House Republican leader, Ford had led efforts to have Douglas impeached. After being confirmed, Stevens eventually disappointed some conservatives by siding with the Court's liberal wing regarding the outcome of many key issues. Nevertheless, in 2005 Ford praised Stevens. "He has served his nation well," Ford said of Stevens, "with dignity, intellect and without partisan political concerns."
Other judicial appointments Ford appointed 11 judges to the United States Courts of Appeals, and 50 judges to the
United States district courts.
1976 presidential campaign congratulates President Ford after the president wins the 1976 Republican nomination, while
Bob Dole,
Nancy Reagan, and
Nelson Rockefeller look on. Ford reluctantly agreed to run for office in 1976, but first he had to counter a challenge for the Republican party nomination. Former
Governor of California Ronald Reagan and the party's
conservative wing faulted Ford for failing to do more in
South Vietnam, for signing the Helsinki Accords, and for negotiating to cede the
Panama Canal. (Negotiations for the canal continued under President Carter, who eventually signed the
Torrijos–Carter Treaties.) Reagan launched his campaign in autumn of 1975 and won numerous
primaries, including
North Carolina,
Texas,
Indiana, and
California, but failed to get a majority of delegates; Reagan withdrew from the race at the
Republican Convention in
Kansas City, Missouri. The conservative insurgency did lead to Ford dropping the more
liberal Vice President Nelson Rockefeller in favor of U.S. senator
Bob Dole of
Kansas. In addition to the pardon dispute and lingering anti-Republican sentiment, Ford had to counter a plethora of negative media imagery.
Chevy Chase often did
pratfalls on
Saturday Night Live,
imitating Ford, who had been seen stumbling on two occasions during his term. As Chase commented, "He even mentioned in his own autobiography it had an effect over a period of time that affected the election to some degree." Ford's 1976 election campaign benefitted from his being an incumbent president during several anniversary events held during the period leading up to the
United States Bicentennial. The Washington, D.C.
fireworks display on the
Fourth of July was presided over by the President and televised nationally. On July 7, 1976, the President and First Lady served as hosts at a White House state dinner for
Queen Elizabeth II and
Prince Philip of the United Kingdom, which was televised on the
Public Broadcasting Service network. The 200th anniversary of the
Battles of Lexington and Concord in Massachusetts gave Ford the opportunity to deliver a speech to 110,000 in Concord acknowledging the need for a strong national defense tempered with a plea for "reconciliation, not recrimination" and "reconstruction, not rancor" between the United States and those who would pose "threats to peace". Speaking in New Hampshire on the previous day, Ford condemned the growing trend toward big government bureaucracy and argued for a return to "basic American virtues". and Ford in
a presidential debate, September 23, 1976 Televised
presidential debates were reintroduced for the first time since the 1960 election. As such, Ford became the first incumbent president to participate in one. Carter later attributed his victory in the election to the debates, saying they "gave the viewers reason to think that Jimmy Carter had something to offer". The turning point came in the second debate when Ford blundered by stating, "There is no Soviet domination of Eastern Europe and there never will be under a Ford Administration." Ford also said that he did not "believe that the Poles consider themselves dominated by the Soviet Union". In an interview years later, Ford said he had intended to imply that the Soviets would never crush the
spirits of eastern Europeans seeking independence. However, the phrasing was so awkward that questioner
Max Frankel was visibly incredulous at the response. by
Jimmy Carter. 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. ==Post-presidency (1977–2006)==