In Memoriam - Gerald R. Ford

Former President Gerald Ford -- the only president I've ever had the opportunity to meet -- is dead at the age of 93. The announcement of his death came in a statement released by his wife Betty.

I had the pleasure of meeting President Ford in 1976 when he was campaigning for the Oval Office. I was 22 years old and working at a television station in Indianapolis. Ford came to the station for an interview, and staff were invited to meet with him following the broadcast. I think I was the first person through the door.

I had a great appreciation for him, given the circumstances that brought him to the office. He was such a breath of fresh air following the Watergate scandal. And I adored his wife Betty -- a champion of the Equal Rights Amendment.

Upon taking office Ford said:

"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."

The New York Times reports:

[Ford] revived the debate over Watergate a month later by granting Nixon a pardon for all crimes he committed as president. That single act, it was widely believed, cost Ford election to a term of his own in 1976, but it won praise in later years as a courageous act that allowed the nation to move on.

Ford's standing in the polls dropped dramatically when he pardoned Nixon unconditionally. But an ABC News poll taken in 2002 in connection with the 30th anniversary of the Watergate break-in found that six in 10 said the pardon was the right thing to do.

The late Democrat Clark Clifford spoke for many when he wrote in his memoirs, ''The nation would not have benefited from having a former chief executive in the dock for years after his departure from office. His disgrace was enough.''

The decision to pardon Nixon won Ford a John F. Kennedy Profile in Courage Award in 2001, and Sen. Edward M. Kennedy, acknowledging he had criticized Ford at the time, called the pardon ''an extraordinary act of courage that historians recognize was truly in the national interest.''

My thoughts are with his loving wife Betty and the Ford children.

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On the net:

Gerald Ford presidential library site: http://www.ford.utexas.edu/

From Wikipedia - Gerald Ford: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gerald_Ford