|
|
|
38th President of the United States (1913-2006) |
|
New
& Recent Conflicts
War
and Conflict
Links Portal
for pages on the history of
comics and superhero
characters Portal
for pages on the nations of the
world Portal
for pages on military history Lists
of wars throughout history and
from around the world Biographical
files on individuals who impact
American politics, culture,
business, education and other
arenas of life in the United
States. Pages
on the governmental systems of
selected nations. United
States national government and
politics. The
latest changes to the History Guy
site. Information
on the History Guy, the origin of
the website, along with
commentaries
and a site
map. |
“.
. . The ultimate test of leadership is not
the polls you take, but the risks you
take. In the short run, some risks prove
overwhelming. Political courage can be
self-defeating. But the greatest defeat of
all would be to live without courage, for
that would hardly be living at
all.”--Remarks
by President Ford upon receiving the John
F. Kennedy Profile in Courage Award--May
21, 2001 "My
family joins me in sharing the difficult
news that Gerald R. Ford, our beloved
husband, father, grandfather, and great
grandfather, has passed away at 93 years
of age. His was a life filled with love of
God, his family, and his
country."--Betty
Ford's statement
of December 26, 2006 President
Gerald R. Ford, Jr. 38th
President of the United
States (1913-2006) Gerald
Rudolph"Jerry" Ford-
(July
14, 1913-December 26,
2006) Gerald
R. Ford, Jr. was the 38th President of the
United States, and holds the distinction
of being the only president who was never
actually elected through a national
election or by the electoral college.
Vice-President Ford became president on
August 9, 1974 when Richard Nixon became
the only president to resign his office.
Ford had become Vice-President only ten
months earlier when Nixon appointed him to
that office upon the resignation of
Vice-President Spiro Agnew. Ford was
born in 1913, the son of Leslie Lynch King
and Dorothy Ayer Gardner. Upon his birth,
he was named Leslie Lynch King, Jr. Two
months after his birth, King and Gardner
divorced. Two years later, she remarried,
and the future president was renamed for
his stepfather, and became Gerald
Rudolph Ford, Jr. Growing up in East
Rapids, Michigan, it was natural for the
athletic Ford to attend the University of
Michigan, where he played football for the
Wolverines. He studied political science
and economics while at Michigan, and later
entered Yale Law School after deciding not
to sign contracts to play professional
football for NFL teams who sought his
football skills. During
World
War Two,
Ford served in the U.S. Navy from April,
1942 to February, 1946. In 1948, Ford was
elected to the United States House of
Representatives as a Republican. He
represented the 5th District of Michigan
from 1949 until chosen as Vice-President
in 1973. It should be noted that Ford,
like many politically-minded veterans of
World War Two, successfully won office in
the elections held in the years right
after the war. Richard Nixon and John F.
Kennedy also entered the House of
Representatives in this time
period. Ford's
influence in Congress grew when fellow
Republicans selected him as their leader
in 1965. Since the Democrats controlled
the House by holding a majority of the
seats, the Republicans were called the
"minority party."As the leader of the
Republicans in Congress, Ford's new
position titled "House Minority
Leader." When
Vice-President Spiro Agnew resigned due to
criminal allegations against him,
President Nixon chose Ford as the new
Vice-President. After the House and Senate
confirmed the choice, Ford became the
first unelected (by voters) Vice-President
of the U.S. Ford's
selection as the Vice-President became
critically important when Nixon resigned
on August 9, 1974. Ford then became the
first unelected (by voters) President of
the U.S. President Ford's first important
decision was to grant Nixon a full
presidential pardon, which prevented any
legal action against the former president
for crimes he may have committed while he
was president. President
Ford's major domestic issues involved the
economy, which was slowed by relatively
high inflation and a recession, or slowing
down of the economy. His
foreign policy issues were significant, as
the long Vietnam
War came
to a close. With the ending of this war,
Communist forces gained control of South
Vietnam, Laos, and Cambodia. The
Communists in Cambodia called themselves
the Khmer Rouge (Red Cambodians,or Khmer).
On May 12, 1975, thirteen days after the
fall of Saigon brought the Vietnam War to
a close, Khmer Rouge forces seized an
American ship, the SS Mayaguez. Ford
decided to use military force to rescue
the ship's crew, and ordered several
hundred U.S. Marines to attack Kho Tang
Island, off the coast of Cambodia. Over 40
American Marines died 23 U.S. airmen died
in a related crash, the crew was released,
and America's long involvement in
Indochina (Vietnam, Laos, and Cambodia)
ended with the Mayaguez
Incident.
Ford also met with Soviet leaders in a
summit in Vladivostok, USSR in
1975. Also in
1975, Ford survived two assassination
attempts. On September 5, 1975, Lynette
"Squeaky" Fromme pulled the trigger of a
gun pointed at President Ford's stomach as
he greeted and shook hands in a crowd in
Sacramento, California. The bullet in the
gun jammed, and Ford was uninjured. Over
two weeks later, on September 22, 1975,
Sara Jane Moore tried to shoot Ford, but a
bystander in the crowd forced the gun away
from her. Despite successfully firing a
shot from her gun, Moore failed to injure
the President. Moore served time in
prison, winning parole on Dec. 31, 2007
(see One
of Ford’s Would-Be Assassins Is
Paroled
from the New York Times, Jan. 1, 2008).
Ford's other failed assassin, Lynette
"Squeaky" Fromme, won parole in August,
2009. (see Ford
Would-Be Assassin to Be
Paroled
from the New York Times, Aug. 5,
2009) Ford ran
for election in 1976, gaining the
Republican nomination for President only
after a bitter and hard-fought primary
campaign against Governor Ronald Reagan.
Ford is a moderate Republican, while
Reagan was the leader of the party's
growing conservative wing. Ford lost the
1976 election to Democrat Jimmy Carter, a
former governor of Georgia. Following
his defeat, Ford retired from formal
politics and wrote several memoirs. He
re-appeared on the scene in 1980 at the
Republican Convention, negotiating with
nominee Ronald Reagan for a possible spot
on the Republican ticket as the
Vice-Presidential nominee. In the
negotiations, Ford reportedly demanded
significant power in a possible Reagan
Administration, including authority over
foreign policy. Reagan decided that this
"co-presidency" was not in his best
interest, and instead chose George H. W.
Bush as his running mate. At the
2000 Republican convention, Ford again
grabbed headlines, this time by suffering
two small strokes while attending the
nominating convention of George W.
Bush. During his
retirement, Ford enjoyed playing golf and
spending time with his wife Betty and
their children and grandchildren. Ford
served as honorary Co-Chair (with former
opponent President Jimmy Carter) of the
National Commission on Federal Election
Reform in 2001. This commission formed as
a result of the disputed Bush-Gore
election of 2000. In
January, 2006, President Ford was
hospitalized with pneumonia. He left the
hospital after a twelve-day
stay. President
Gerald Ford passed away on Tuesday,
December 26, 2006 at the age of 93. At the
time of his death, he was the longest
lived former president in U.S. history,
surpassing the late Ronald Reagan, who
also died at age 93. Books
by Gerald and Betty Ford: Books
about Ford: Quotes by
President Ford (source: http://www.ford.utexas.edu/grf/quotes.asp): “I
am a Ford, not a
Lincoln.”--Remarks after being
sworn in as Vice President of the United
States--December 6, 1973 "I have
not sought this enormous responsibility,
but I will not shirk it . . . I believe
that truth is the glue that holds
government together, not only our
Government, but civilization itself. That
bond, though strained, is unbroken at home
and abroad. In all my public and private
acts as your President, I expect to follow
my instincts of openness and candor with
full confidence that honesty is always the
best policy in the end. 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.”--Remarks upon being sworn
in as President of the United
States--August 9, 1974 “As
we are a nation under God, so I am sworn
to uphold our laws with the help of God.
And I have sought such guidance and
searched my own conscience with special
diligence to determine the right thing for
me to do with respect to my predecessor in
this place, Richard Nixon, and his loyal
wife and family. Theirs is an American
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.”--Remarks upon
granting a pardon to former President
Richard Nixon--September 8,
1974 “History
will judge this Conference not by what we
say here today, but by what we do tomorrow
- not by the promises we make, but by the
promises we keep.”--Address
before the Conference on Security and
Cooperation in Europe--August 1,
1975 “As
we continue our American
adventure…all our heroes and heroines
of war and peace send us this single,
urgent message: though prosperity is a
good thing, though compassionate charity
is a good thing, though institutional
reform is a good thing, a nation survives
only so long as the spirit of sacrifice
and self-discipline is strong within its
people. Independence has to be defended as
well as declared; freedom is always worth
fighting for; and liberty ultimately
belongs only to those willing to suffer
for it.”--Bicentennial Remarks at
Valley Forge, Pennsylvania--July 4, 1976
“To
me, the Presidency and the Vice-Presidency
were not prizes to be won, but a duty to
be done.”--Remarks upon accepting
the Republican Presidential Nomination,
Kansas City, Missouri--August 19,
1976 "Some
people equate civility with weakness and
compromise with surrender. I strongly
disagree. I come by my political
pragmatism the hard way, for my generation
paid a very heavy price in resistance to
the century we had of some extremists --
to the dictators, the utopians, the social
engineers who are forever condemning the
human race for being all too
human."--Remarks upon receiving the
Congressional Gold Medal--October 27,
1999. “I
have always believed that most people are
mostly good, most of the time. I have
never mistaken moderation for weakness,
nor civility for surrender. As far as I'm
concerned, there are no enemies in
politics--just temporary opponents who
might vote with you on the next Roll
Call.”--Remarks upon receiving
the John F. Kennedy Profile in Courage
Award--May 21, 2001 “.
. . The ultimate test of leadership is not
the polls you take, but the risks you
take. In the short run, some risks prove
overwhelming. Political courage can be
self-defeating. But the greatest defeat of
all would be to live without courage, for
that would hardly be living at
all.”--Remarks upon receiving the
John F. Kennedy Profile in Courage
Award--May 21, 2001 Bartel
J.
Jonkman 1949–1973 Richard
F. Vander
Veen Charles
A.
Halleck 1965–1973 John
J. Rhodes Spiro
Agnew December
6, 1973 – August 9,
1974 Nelson
Rockefeller Richard
Nixon August
9, 1974 – January 20,
1977 Jimmy
Carter Richard
Nixon 1976
(lost) Ronald
Reagan "The
History Guy" is a Registered Trademark. Contact
the webmaster |
The
Conflicts Dealt With by Gerald Ford,
1974-1977 Analysis of Ford's decisions on the Mayaguez
and Angola conflicts. Family,
Career, and Personal
Highlights Gerald
Ford
(1890-1962)--Adoptive/Stepfather Dorothy
Ayer Gardner
(1892-1967)
-- Mother Leslie
Lynch King
(1886-1941)--Biological
Father Elizabeth
"Betty" Bloomer Warren (b. 1918),
Wife,wed
on October 15, 1948 Children: John
Gardner "Jack" Ford (b.
1952)--Son Steven
Meigs Ford (b.
1956)--Son Susan
Elizabeth
Ford
(b.
1957)--Daughter Religion:
Siblings Leslie
("Bud") Henry King
(1923-1976)--Half-Brother Half-Siblings
on his mother's
side: Richard
Addison Ford (b.
1924)--Half-Brother James
Francis
Ford
(1927-2001)--Half-Brother Education: Varsity
Letter Club, Glee
Club, Student
Council, Latin
Club Hi-Y
(High School YMCA).
Participated
in football, basketball,
and track. Earned all-city
and all-state honors in
football. 1935:
BA Economics and Political
Science,
University
of
Michigan. Sphinx
(junior men's honor
society) Delta
Kappa Epsilon
fraternity Interfraternity
Council Student
Council. 1941:
LL.B. ,Yale
University Law
School Career/Occupation: Military
Service: 1942-1946
(World War Two): United States
Navy --served
as the assistant navigator,
Athletic Officer, and
antiaircraft battery
officer While
Ford served on the USS
Monterey, the
ship: --participated
in carrier strikes against
Kavieng, New Ireland in
1943 --supported
landings at Kwajalein and
Eniwetok --participlated
in carrier strikes in the
Marianas, Western
Carolines, and northern New
Guinea, as well as in the
Battle of Philippine Sea
--Monterey
launched strikes against
Wake Island --participated
in strikes in the
Philippines and Ryukus
--supported
the landings at Leyte and
Mindoro. Ford's
Service Medals and
Citations: --the
Philippine Liberation with
two bronze stars for Leyte
and Mindoro --the
American Campaign and World
War II Victory
Medals. 1946-1963:
Naval Reserves Political
Career: 1949-1973:
United States House of
Representatives (R) 1973-1974:
Vice-President of the United
States (R). 1974-1977:
President of the United States
(R) Clubs
and Organizations
(membership): --Veterans
of Foreign Wars --AMVETS --33rd
Degree Mason Athletic
Career: Playing
Career: Grand
Rapids South High School
(Mich.):
Participated
in football, basketball, and
track. Earned all-city and
all-state honors in football.
1932-1935:
Played center and linebacker
University
of Michigan Football
Team 1934:
Voted in as the Wolverine's
Most Valuable Player
(MVP) 1935:
Played in the Chicago Tribune
College All-Star football game
(Now known as the East-West
Shrine Game) 1935:
Offered professional football
contracts by the Detroit Lions
and the Green Bay Packers.
Ford turned them down to coach
at Yale. Coaching
Career: 1940-1941:
Line coach for the University
of Grand Rapids football
team 1942-1945:
Various coaching and athletic
director positions in the U.S.
Navy Gerald
R. Ford's Speeches &
Documents The
Ford Administration: The Cabinet,
Aides, &
Advisors The
Cabinet--The
President's Cabinet is made up of
the appointed leaders, or
"Secretaries" of each of the
Executive Departments. The
National Security
Council
--Advises the President on
national security and foreign
policy. Links
and Resources on Gerald
Ford Gerald
R. Ford--Biography
of Gerald R. Ford. From the
official White House web
site. Gerald
Ford--Wikipedia
article The
Conflicts Dealt With by Gerald
Ford, 1974-1977 --Analysis of
Ford's decisions on the Mayaguez
and Angola conflicts. Gerald
R. Ford Library and
Museum
--Promotes popular interest and
scholarly research in U.S.
history during the post-World War
II era, especially the Ford
presidency (1974-77). President
Gerald Ford: Health & Medical
History--Medical history of
President Gerald R. Ford American
President.Org: Gerald
Ford--Website run by the
University of Virginia. Character
Above All: Gerald Ford Essay
--Excerpt from an essay about the
troubled childhood and political
career of Gerald Ford, who became
the 38th President of the United
States. By James Cannon. Former
President Ford Dead at
93--AP/Yahoo News. Lieutenant
Commander Gerald Ford,
USNR--Naval record of
President Gerald R. Ford, USN
1942-1946, United States Naval
Reserve, 1946-1963 Ford
Disagreed With Bush About
Invading Iraq--By Bob
Woodward, Washington Post Staff
Writer, Thursday, December 28,
2006 Site
Map--revision
in progress |
|||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
