December 27, 200619 yr LOS ANGELES - Gerald R. Ford, who picked up the pieces of Richard Nixon's scandal-shattered White House as the 38th and only unelected president in America's history, has died, his wife, Betty, said Tuesday. He was 93. "My family joins me in sharing the difficult news that Gerald Ford, our beloved husband, father, grandfather and great grandfather has passed away at 93 years of age," Mrs. Ford said in a brief statement issued from her husband's office in Rancho Mirage. "His life was filled with love of God, his family and his country." The statement did not say where Ford died or list a cause of death. Ford had battled pneumonia in January 2006 and underwent two heart treatments ? including an angioplasty ? in August at the Mayo Clinic in Rochester, Minn. He was the longest living president, followed by Ronald Reagan, who also died at 93. Ford had been living at his desert home in Rancho Mirage, Calif., about 130 miles east of Los Angeles. Ford was an accidental president, Nixon's hand-picked successor, a man of much political experience who had never run on a national ticket. He was as open and straight-forward as Nixon was tightly controlled and conspiratorial. He took office minutes after Nixon flew off into exile and declared "our long national nightmare is over." But he revived the debate 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. The Vietnam War ended in defeat for the U.S. during his presidency with the fall of Saigon in April 1975. In a speech as the end neared, Ford said: "Today, America can regain the sense of pride that existed before Vietnam. But it cannot be achieved by refighting a war that is finished as far as America is concerned." Evoking Abraham Lincoln, he said it was time to "look forward to an agenda for the future, to unify, to bind up the nation's wounds." Ford also earned a place in the history books as the first unelected vice president, chosen by Nixon to replace Spiro Agnew who also was forced from office by scandal. He was in the White House only 895 days, but changed it more than it changed him. Even after two women tried separately to kill him, the presidency of Jerry Ford remained open and plain. Not imperial. Not reclusive. And, of greatest satisfaction to a nation numbed by Watergate, not dishonest. Even to millions of Americans who had voted two years earlier for Richard Nixon, the transition to Ford's leadership was one of the most welcomed in the history of the democratic process ? despite the fact that it occurred without an election. After the Watergate ordeal, Americans liked their new president ? and first lady Betty, whose candor charmed the country. They liked her for speaking openly about problems of young people, including her own daughter; they admired her for not hiding that she had a mastectomy ? in fact, her example caused thousands of women to seek breast examinations. And she remained one of the country's most admired women even after the Fords left the White House when she was hospitalized in 1978 and admitted to having become addicted to drugs and alcohol she took for painful arthritis and a pinched nerve in her neck. Four years later she founded the Betty Ford Center in Rancho Mirage, a substance abuse facility next to Eisenhower Medical Center. Ford slowed down in recent years. He had been hospitalized in August 2000 when he suffered one or more small strokes while attending the Republican National Convention in Philadelphia. The following year, he joined former presidents Carter, Bush and Clinton at a memorial service in Washington three days after the Sept. 11 attacks. In June 2004, the four men and their wives joined again at a funeral service in Washington for former President Reagan. But in November 2004, Ford was unable to join the other former presidents at the dedication of the Clinton presidential library in Little Rock, Ark. In January, Ford was hospitalized with pneumonia for 12 days. He wasn't seen in public until April 23, when President Bush was in town and paid a visit to the Ford home. Bush, Ford and Betty posed for photographers outside the residence before going inside for a private get-together. The intensely private couple declined reporter interview requests and were rarely seen outside their home in Rancho Mirage's gated Thunderbird Estates, other than to attend worship services at the nearby St. Margaret's Episcopal Church in Palm Desert.
December 27, 200619 yr The eBay leeches are out in full force now. This was just listed for $2,500: http://cgi.ebay.com/PCGS-Gerald-Ford-HAND-...tem160067250079 :|
December 27, 200619 yr The eBay leeches are out in full force now. This was just listed for $2,500: http://cgi.ebay.com/PCGS-Gerald-Ford-HAND-...tem160067250079 :| Capitalism. Love it or leave it.
December 27, 200619 yr The eBay leeches are out in full force now. This was just listed for $2,500: http://cgi.ebay.com/PCGS-Gerald-Ford-HAND-...tem160067250079 :| Capitalism. Love it or leave it. Love it.
December 27, 200619 yr The nation has lost a great leader and a great man. Former President Gerald R. Ford, the nation's only unelected commander in chief, died Tuesday night. His office did not release a cause of death. He was 93. Ford, the 38th president of the United States, was a Navy officer, Republican representative, a lawyer and family man, but made his mark on history when he replaced Spiro T. Agnew as vice president in 1973 after Agnew pleaded no contest to income tax evasion. On Aug. 9, 1974, amid the growing Watergate scandal, President Nixon resigned, leaving the White House to his new but loyal vice president. Less than a month after taking office, Ford pardoned Nixon, a controversial move that clouded the early months of his presidency, but one he stood behind for the rest of his life. Ford campaigned to stay in office in 1976, but lost to Jimmy Carter, making his tenure as commander in chief the fifth-shortest in history.
December 27, 200619 yr He smokes a pipe! He's 8 billion times the man a non-pipe smoker is. :notworthy also, RIP Gerry.
December 27, 200619 yr Guy got a tough situation, having to pick up Nixon's pieces after two different presidential scandals, watching over the tail end of Vietnam, and bickering with the all Democrat congress which was at the height of its power. He gets to go down in the record books as the only unelected President ever, and one of a select few entrusted with the most difficult and most stressful position on Earth. RIP Mr. President.
Join the conversation
You can post now and register later. If you have an account, sign in now to post with your account.
Note: Your post will require moderator approval before it will be visible.