Gerald Ford

I

Introduction

Gerald Ford (1913-2006), 38th President of the United States (1974-1977), the only president elected neither to the presidency nor to the vice-presidency. He attempted during his two-and-a-half-year term to restore the nation's confidence in a government tarnished by the Watergate scandal.

Ford, whose original name was Leslie King, was born on July 14, 1913, in Omaha, Nebraska. His parents were divorced, and his mother, Dorothy Gardner, moved to Grand Rapids, Michigan where she married Gerald R. Ford, who adopted her son and changed his name to Gerald R. Ford, Jr.

Ford entered the University of Michigan in 1931, where he was a distinguished American football player. He graduated from Yale Law School in 1941, and served in the US navy during World War II, seeing action in the Pacific (see War in the Pacific). On his return from the war, Ford resumed a legal career, and in 1948 he married the professional model and dancer Elizabeth (Betty) Bloomer, who later became famous in her own right as the founder of the Betty Ford Center for the treatment of drug and alcohol dependency.

The same year Ford was elected to the House of Representatives (see Congress of the United States) as a Republican. During his tenure there (until 1973), he was a strict conservative, opposing federal aid to education and housing, increases in the minimum wage, Medicare, the Office of Economic Opportunity, and anti-pollution bills. In 1970 he led an unsuccessful attempt to impeach the liberal Supreme Court Justice William O. Douglas. Ford favoured increasing the defence budget, and he usually voted for civil rights legislation. In 1965 he was elected minority leader of the House of Representatives.

II

The Presidency

Following the resignation of Vice-President Spiro T. Agnew in 1973, Ford was chosen as his successor by President Richard M. Nixon. During his nine months as vice-president, Ford staunchly defended Nixon, who was accused of misconduct in the Watergate affair. When Nixon resigned under threat of impeachment on August 9, 1974, Ford was sworn in as the new president. One of his first and most controversial acts was to pardon Nixon for all federal crimes he might have committed in office.

III

Domestic Policy

At home, Ford faced three major problems: rising inflation, unemployment, and energy use. He tried to control inflation by restricting spending for social programmes—he vetoed more than 50 bills—and by attempting to win public support for a campaign known as Whip Inflation Now (WIN). During his two and a half years in office, the annual inflation rate dropped from 11.2 to 5.3 per cent.

To attack unemployment, which in early 1975 was nearly 9 per cent (the highest since the Great Depression of the 1930s), Ford tried to create jobs by cutting the taxes of upper-income people so that they would buy more goods. He resisted demands for government-sponsored public works projects to create jobs. In energy policy, he supported corporate development of new energy sources with government subsidies.

IV

Foreign Policy

In foreign affairs, Ford and his secretary of state, Henry Kissinger, continued the policy of détente with the Soviet Union begun under Nixon. In 1975 the United States signed the Helsinki Accords, which ratified post-World War II European borders and supported human rights.