JERRY FORD—MR. LEADER, MR. PRESIDENT, MR. AMERICA

By Edwin Cooney

No, I didn’t vote for President Ford that sunny Election Day in upstate New York where I lived back in 1976. My heart was (and still is) with Jimmy Carter.

I was even a little tired of hearing about President Jerry Ford’s all around “good guy” image. I wanted a president interested in creating jobs and offering assistance to the unemployed, who was concerned about the needs of patients rather than the demands of the American Medical Association.

Even more, it seemed to me, “good old Jerry” had been way too chummy with “good old Dick Nixon” and I was thoroughly tired of the whole mess in Washington. I was tired of Jerry Ford and Earl L. Butz, the Nixon/ Ford administrations’ acerbic Secretary of Agriculture who was known for his racist jokes. I was tired of Jerry Ford and the Joint Chiefs of Staff General George Brown who kept making anti-Semitic statements that President Ford would apologize for hoping that everyone would forget that they were made at all. I was tired of Jerry Ford and his veto pen of which he was too proud to suit this voter. I was even tired of President Ford and his brilliant Secretary of State Henry A. Kissinger.

As far as I was concerned, it was time to throw the rascals out. True, I had helped put them there back in 1968 when I, just as enthusiastically as GOP House Minority Leader Ford, voted for Richard Nixon. Still, for me, it was time for President Gerald Rudolph Ford -- with all of his wholesomeness -- to go on a permanent vacation.

So, away he went and time set in. Jimmy was great as far as I was and am still concerned, but America lost patience with the Carter complexity which was often exacerbated by his outwardly gentle style and willingness always to examine his own psyche. It made him appear less than decisive. In fact, CBS commentator Eric Severeid compared Ford and Carter on the final night of the 1976 presidential campaign, observing that while there may be something good to say about Jimmy Carter’s willingness to examine his own psyche, there was also something positive about President Ford’s seeming not to realize that he even HAD a psyche – thus leaving his mind alone.

As time passed, I began to let the best of Jerry Ford back into my awareness. It began in October 1981 when Nixon, Carter, and Ford represented President Reagan at the funeral of assassinated Egyptian President Anwar El Sadat. Nixon stayed in the Middle East to do what Nixon did best—showcasing himself as a foreign policy expert—while Jimmy and Jerry flew home aboard one of President Reagan’s Air Force One jets. Not only did they talk during the long flight home, they actually bonded and became permanent friends, each throwing political and personal differences aside. For the rest of his life except when political seasons rolled around, Jerry Ford had nice things to say about the man who had denied him election to a full one thousand, four hundred, and sixty-one day presidential term.

Slowly, I began to allow myself to realize what a truly extraordinary human being Jerry Ford was from the day of his birth on July 14th, 1913 as Leslie Lynch King to Tuesday, December 26th, 2006—the day he died.

As many young people do, Jerry Ford had to come to terms with the nearly unfathomable. He discovered at age twelve that he had two dads and had been named after both of them. Leslie Lynch King of Omaha, Nebraska was his biological father. Gerald R. Ford of Grand Rapids, Michigan, his mother Dorothy’s second husband, was his adopted dad. Young Jerry chose the senior Jerry as the senior Jerry had once chosen young Jerry—and that was that—except for a healthy tear or two.

Jerry Ford was both a good student and a good athlete. A member of the National Honor Society, he finished in the top five percent of his 1931 graduating class at South High in Grand Rapids. An excellent student and athlete at Michigan State University, young Ford was the center on the College All Stars team that played the Chicago Bears in the 1935 College All Stars summer classic against the NFL. He’s the only U.S. President who was drafted by two NFL franchises (the Detroit Lions and the Green Bay Packers). Jerry Ford is also the only President to have been an Eagle Scout, not to mention a magazine model for men’s clothing. Having completed his studies at the University of Michigan, he went on to Yale University where he was employed both as an assistant football coach and as head boxing coach before being admitted to the law school.

Admitted to the Michigan State Bar in 1941, young Ford practiced law in Grand Rapids with Philip A. Buchen. World War II would interrupt their law practice, but certainly not their friendship. Jerry Ford’s friend Phil Buchen would become White House Counsel to the President Gerald R. Ford in the 1974 White House.

Jerry Ford served on the USS Monterey as Physical Fitness Officer and as Assistant Gunnery Officer during World War II. He rose from Ensign to Lieutenant Commander.

Upon his return home in February1946, he joined the law firm of Butterfield, Keeney and Amberg. Jerry Ford, Sr. had served as local Republican Party Chairman during World War II and that service had to have been an important factor in young Jerry’s decision to run for Congress in 1948.

Realizing that World War II had forever changed America’s role in international politics, he challenged and defeated GOP isolationist incumbent Congressman Bartel J. Jonkman 23,632 to 14,341 in the 1948 GOP primary. In the General Election of 1948, he defeated Democrat Fred J. Barr 74,191 votes to 46,972.

In between those two political events came his October 15th, 1948 marriage to Elizabeth Anne (Betty) Bloomer, a thirty-year-old divorcee. Betty and her husband William Warren had amicably divorced in 1947. Only a short time later, at the urging of Peg Neuman, a mutual friend, Betty agreed to meet Jerry Ford for a drink and from then on they never stopped dating.

Thus at the beginning of 1949, the newlyweds found themselves house hunting in Washington D.C. Jerry’s new job would be demanding and political campaigning would become almost a continuous way of life for the young couple and their growing family.

Jerry Ford’s twenty-five plus years in the House were hectic but pleasant ones. His ultimate political goal was to become Speaker of the House of Representatives. Jerry Ford was a plain spoken but pleasant man who liked people. Because his liking for people was so evident, people naturally were drawn to him.

Politically he was an internationalist in foreign affairs and a moderate conservative on domestic issues. His “conservatism” was more instinctual than it was ideological or doctrinaire. He was cautious of spending on most things, but as he admitted during his first speech to Congress after becoming President in 1974, he sometimes favored spending money on worthy Grand Rapids, Michigan projects more than he favored “wasteful spending” -- especially in Democratic congressional districts.

His rise in the House accelerated in the 1960s. In 1963, he became Chairman of the House GOP conference and, in 1965, he challenged House Minority Leader Charles Halleck of Indiana and defeated him by a vote of 73 to 66.

As GOP House Leader, he became nationally known as the House half of the “Ev and Jerry show” — which was the weekly briefing that Jerry Ford, as House GOP Leader, and Republican Senate Leader Everett Dirksen held for the press. During these meetings, Ev and Jerry would comment on Johnson administration policies. Dirksen, with that deep, almost “other worldly” voice would make some pithy observation about LBJ, Hubert Humphrey, or Congress, and Jerry would laugh in all the right places.

Then there was Ford’s appointment by President Lyndon B. Johnson as one of two House members to serve on the Warren Commission to investigate the assassination of President John F. Kennedy. Congressman Ford co-wrote the book “Portrait of an Assassin” with Warren Commission assistant John R. Stiles in which he endorsed the commission’s conclusion that Lee Harvey Oswald acted alone.

Essentially, Gerald Ford was a combination of moderate partisan and moderate compromiser. He wasn’t always either thoughtful or fair. He could be testy and partisan when it came to attacking President Johnson or defending President Nixon. His attempt to impeach Supreme Court Associate Justice William O. Douglas was partisan retaliation for Liberal attacks on President Nixon’s failed Supreme Court nominees in 1969 and 1970.

Then suddenly in October 1973, Vice President Spiro T. Agnew resigned and a Watergate-plagued Richard Nixon turned to the neighborly Midwesterner Jerry Ford to take his place. Only the most partisan Democrats seriously questioned Ford’s credentials to become Vice President. Some believe that Nixon nearly chose Jerry Ford for Vice President in 1960 and even considered him in 1968. So he was confirmed, becoming Vice President of the United States on the night of Thursday, December 6th, 1973. He would be sworn in by Chief Justice Warren Burger before President Nixon and a Joint Session of Congress.

Nine months and three days later on that sweltering Washington D.C. Friday, August 9th, 1974, the tall, burly Michigander was sworn in as our thirty-eighth President. His term as President, which lasted two years, five months and eleven days, was deeply marred by President Ford’s decision to pardon former President Richard Nixon of all crimes and misdemeanors which he may have committed. Honest and genial as he truly was, Jerry Ford could not get out from under the suspicion of millions that he’d made a political deal rather than a principled judgment when it came to the fate of his friend Dick Nixon.

President Ford’s successes were modest but solid. There was the December 1974 Vladivostok arms agreement which led to the successful Reagan Strategic Arms settlement in the 1980s. Then there was the Helsinki agreement in 1975 in which both East and West agreed to noninterference in one another’s internal affairs which led to an easing of travel restrictions in Eastern Europe.

The May 1975 rescue of the U.S. Merchant Ship Mayaguez which had been captured briefly in Cambodian waters was credited largely to President Ford’s coolness and determination in the face of an international crisis.

Although President Ford was philosophically favorable to business, he signed four consumer bills in 1975 providing for oversight protection in areas such as consumer credit and appliance warranties as well as real estate purchases.

Originally opposed to assisting New York City when it faced default, President Ford signed legislation providing for low interest loans to assist the city after it had adjusted its own fiscal imbalances.

In April 1975, Gerald Ford became the first President since Franklin D. Roosevelt in 1942 to see American forces driven from foreign soil when North Vietnam overran Saigon and renamed it Ho Chi Min City. However, most Americans didn’t blame the President or his administration because they were more anxious than President Ford to be rid of Vietnam.

A good politician in the best sense of the word, Jerry Ford knew how to use and balance ideologies in politics. He was glad to be considered a political Conservative, especially as that ideology gained national favor, but he used Conservatism rather than being controlled by it. Even more impressive, he nearly won the 1976 election with Richard Nixon tied around his neck.

With the possible exception of Harry Truman, Jerry Ford was probably closer to the ideals of “Mr. and Mrs. America” than any other modern president. He lived a modest life even while in Congress,. He spoke plainly. He appeared to think problems through in a practical rather than an ideological way. It was easy to imagine Jerry Ford as a Boy Scout master, a high school history teacher, a Chamber of Commerce president – or even as your dad.

As President, Gerald R. Ford lacked the grandfatherly wisdom of Ike; the glamour of Jack Kennedy; the grandiose vision of LBJ; the political cynicism of Richard Nixon; the earnestness of Jimmy Carter; the suavity of Ronald Reagan; the breeding of George Herbert Walker Bush; the political wiliness of Bill Clinton; and the determined adventurism of President George Walker Bush. However, more than any of the above, Jerry Ford as President of the United States came across as one of us.

He would pay the price necessary to protect the presidency and the nation from the time consuming and ongoing turmoil of Richard Milhous Nixon—and he would simultaneously protect his friend Dick Nixon from the country’s national wrath.

My guess is that if you were to ask him why he acted as he did, he’d remind you that Richard Nixon was first and foremost an American citizen who in some ways had given the nation his best. Then he’d remind you that one’s fate as a person matters more than one’s fate as a politician.

Then I think he’d leave you to figure the rest out for yourself.

RESPECTFULLY SUBMITTED,

EDWIN COONEY