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FORD, Gerald R(udolph)
(1913–2006),
38th president of the U.S. (1974–77). The only president
who was elected neither to the presidency nor to the vice-presidency,
he attempted during his 2 1/2-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, Nebr. His parents were divorced, and his mother,
Dorothy Gardner (1892–1967), moved to Grand Rapids, Mich.,
where she married Gerald R. Ford (1889–1962), who adopted
her son and changed his name to Gerald R. Ford, Jr.
Ford entered the University of Michigan in 1931; he played
varsity football on the undefeated 1932 and 1933 teams and was named
the most valuable player in 1934. He attended Yale Law School from
1935 to 1941. After graduating and practicing law in Grand Rapids
for a few months, Ford enlisted in the navy and saw action in the
South Pacific. He was discharged in 1946. Two years later he married
the professional model and dancer Elizabeth Bloomer (1918– ).
In 1948 Ford was elected to the U.S. House of Representatives.
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
antipollution bills. In 1970 he led an unsuccessful attempt to impeach
the liberal Supreme Court Justice William O. Douglas. Ford favored
increasing the defense budget, and he usually voted for civil rights
legislation. In 1965 he was elected minority leader of the House
of Representatives.
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 Aug. 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.
At home, Ford faced three major problems: rising inflation, unemployment,
and energy use. He tried to control inflation by restricting spending
for social programs—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 percent.
To attack unemployment, which in early 1975 was near 9 percent
(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 the energy area, he supported
corporate development of new energy sources with government subsidies.
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 U.S. signed the Helsinki Agreement,
which ratified post-World War II European borders and supported
human rights.
In 1976 Ford defeated Ronald Reagan for the Republican party presidential
nomination, dropping his vice-president, Nelson Rockefeller, in
favor of Senator Robert Dole (1923– )
of Kansas. Ford and Dole campaigned against Democratic party nominees
Jimmy Carter and Walter Mondale, but lost the election by a margin
of 241 electoral votes to 297. Ford, although he was the first incumbent
president to be defeated since Herbert Hoover in 1932, remained
influential in Republican circles after he left office. He received
the U.S. Presidential Medal of Freedom in 1999. On November 12, 2006, Ford surpassed Ronald Reagan and became the longest lived president in US history. Ford died on December 26, 2006 at his home in Rancho Mirage, Calfornia. He became the 11th U.S. President to lie in state and was interred at his Presidential Museum in Grand Rapids, Michigan.