Former President Gerald Ford dies at 93
Former President Gerald Ford dies at 93
RANCHO MIRAGE, Calif. (AP) — Former President Gerald R. Ford, who declared "Our long national nightmare is over" as he replaced Richard Nixon, died at the age of 93.
The nation's 38th president, and the only one neither elected to the office nor the vice presidency, died at his desert home at 6:45 p.m. Tuesday.
Many say Ford may have doomed his own chances of election by pardoning former President Nixon for his role in the Watergate scandal.
Ford was the longest-living former president, surpassing Ronald Reagan, who died in June 2004, by more than a month.
"His life was filled with love of God, his family and his country," his wife, Betty, said in a statement.
Ford's office did not release the cause of death, which followed a year of medical problems. He was treated for pneumonia in January and had an angioplasty and pacemaker implant in August.
Funeral arrangements are to be announced today.
"President Ford was a great man who devoted the best years of his life in serving the United States," President Bush said in a brief statement to the nation Wednesday morning. "He was a true gentleman who reflected the best in America's character."
Former President Carter described him Wednesday as "one of the most admirable public servants and human beings I have ever known."
Ford was an accidental president. A Michigan Republican elected to Congress 13 times before becoming the first appointed vice president in 1973 after Spiro Agnew left amid scandal, Ford was Nixon's hand-picked successor, a man of much political experience who had never run on a national ticket. He was considered as open and straightforward as Nixon was tightly controlled and conspiratorial.
Ford took office moments after Nixon resigned in disgrace over Watergate.
"My fellow Americans, our long national nightmare is over. Our Constitution works. Our great republic is a government of laws and not of men. Here the people rule," Ford said. "I am acutely aware that you have not elected me as your president by your ballots. So I ask you to confirm me with your prayers."
He revived the debate over Watergate a month later by granting Nixon a pardon for all crimes he committed as president. Some suggested the pardon was prearranged before Nixon resigned, but Ford, in an unusual appearance before a congressional committee in October 1974, said, "There was no deal, period, under no circumstances." The committee dropped its investigation.
The single act, it was widely believed, contributed to Ford losing election to a term of his own in 1976. But it won praise in later years as a courageous act allowing the nation to move on.
The Vietnam War ended in defeat for the United States during his presidency with the fall of Saigon in April 1975.
"Today, America can regain the sense of pride that existed before Vietnam. But it cannot be achieved by refighting a war that is finished as far as America is concerned," Ford said in a speech as the end of the war neared.
Ford was in the White House only 895 days, but he is considered to have changed it more than it changed him.
Even after two women tried separately to kill him, his presidency remained open and plain. He was undaunted after two attempts on his life in September 1975.
Lynette "Squeaky" Fromme, a 26-year-old follower of Charles Manson, was arrested after she aimed a semiautomatic pistol at Ford on Sept. 5 in Sacramento, Calif. A Secret Service agent grabbed her and Ford was unhurt.
Seventeen days later, Sara Jane Moore, a 45-year-old political activist, was arrested in San Francisco after she fired a gun at the president. Again, Ford was unhurt.
Both women are serving life terms in federal prison.
Even to millions of Americans who had voted two years earlier for Nixon, the transition to Ford's leadership was one of the most welcomed in the history of the democratic process — despite the fact that it occurred without an election.
After the Watergate ordeal, Americans liked their new president — and first lady Betty, whose candor charmed the country.
When Agnew resigned in a bribery scandal in October 1973, Ford was one of four finalists to succeed him: Texan John Connally, New York's Nelson Rockefeller and California's Ronald Reagan.
"Personal factors enter into such a decision," Nixon recalled for a Ford biographer in 1991. "I knew all of the final four personally and had great respect for each one of them, but I had known Jerry Ford longer and better than any of the rest.
"We had served in Congress together. I had often campaigned for him in his district," Nixon continued. But Ford had something the others didn't: he would be easily confirmed by Congress, something that could not be said of Rockefeller, Reagan and Connally.
Ford became the first vice president appointed under the 25th amendment to the Constitution.
In 1976, he survived an intraparty challenge from Ronald Reagan only to lose to Democrat Jimmy Carter in November. In the campaign, he ignored Carter's record as governor of Georgia and concentrated on his own achievements as president.
Carter won 297 electoral votes to his 240. After Reagan came back to defeat Carter in 1980, the two former presidents became collaborators, working together on joint projects.
"His life-long dedication to helping others touched the lives of countless people," Carter said Wednesday. "He frequently rose above politics by emphasizing the need for bipartisanship and seeking common ground on issues critical to our nation."
At a joint session after becoming president, Ford addressed members of Congress as "my former colleagues" and promised "communication, conciliation, compromise and cooperation." But his relations with Congress did not always run smoothly.
He vetoed 66 bills in his barely two years as president. Congress overturned 12 Ford vetoes, more than for any president since Andrew Johnson.
After Ford's death, the U.S. flag over the White House was lowered to half-staff. The New York Stock Exchange and Nasdaq plan moments of silence today in Ford's honor. And at Ford's presidential museum in Grand Rapids, a steady stream of visitors light candles and line up to sign condolence books about the former president.
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