Gerald Rudolph Ford, the 38th President of the United
States, was born Leslie Lynch King, Jr., the son of
Leslie Lynch King and Dorothy Ayer Gardner King, on July
14, 1913, in Omaha, Nebraska. His parents separated two
weeks after his birth and his mother took him to Grand
Rapids, Michigan to live with her parents. On February
1, 1916, approximately two years after her divorce was
final, Dorothy King married Gerald R. Ford, a Grand
Rapids paint salesman. The Fords began calling her son
Gerald R. Ford, Jr., although his name was not legally
changed until December 3, 1935. He did not know until
1930 that Gerald Ford, Sr., was not his biological
father. The future president grew up in a close- knit
family which included three younger half-brothers,
Thomas, Richard, and James.
Ford attended South High School in Grand Rapids, where
he excelled scholastically and athletically, being named
to the honor society and the "All-City" and "All-State"
football teams. He was also active in scouting,
achieving the rank of Eagle Scout in November 1927. He
earned spending money by working in the family paint
business and at a local restaurant.
From 1931 to 1935 Ford attended The University of
Michigan at Ann Arbor, where he majored in economics and
political science. He graduated with a B.A. degree in
June 1935. He held various part-time jobs to supplement
his scholarship. A gifted athlete, Ford played on the
University's national championship football teams in
1932 and 1933. He was voted the Wolverine's most
valuable player in 1934 and on January 1, 1935, played
in the annual East-West College All-Star game in San
Francisco, for the benefit of the Shrine Crippled
Children's Hospital. In August 1935 he played in the
Chicago Tribune College All-Star football game at
Soldier Field against the Chicago Bears.
He received offers from two professional football teams,
the Detroit Lions and the Green Bay Packers, but chose
instead to take a position as boxing coach and assistant
varsity football coach at Yale hoping to attend law
school there. Among those he coached were future U.S.
Senators Robert Taft, Jr. and William Proxmire. Yale
officials initially denied him admission to the law
school, because of his full-time coaching
responsibilities, but admitted him in the spring of
1938. Ford earned his LL.B. degree in 1941, graduating
in the top 25 percent of his class in spite of the time
he had to devote to his coaching duties. His
introduction to politics came in the summer of 1940 when
he worked in Wendell Willkie's presidential campaign.
After returning to Michigan and passing his bar exam,
Ford and a University of Michigan fraternity brother,
Philip A. Buchen (who later served on Ford's White House
staff as Counsel to the President), set up a law
partnership in Grand Rapids. He also taught a course in
business law at the University of Grand Rapids and
served as line coach for the school's football team. He
had just become active in a group of reform-minded
Republicans in Grand Rapids, calling themselves the Home
Front, who were interested in challenging the hold of
local political boss Frank McKay, when the United States
entered World War II.
In April 1942 Ford joined the U.S. Naval Reserve
receiving a commission as an ensign. After an
orientation program at Annapolis, he became a physical
fitness instructor at a pre- flight school in Chapel
Hill, North Carolina. In the spring of 1943 he began
service in the light aircraft carrier USS MONTEREY. He
was first assigned as athletic director and gunnery
division officer, then as assistant navigator, with the
MONTEREY which took part in most of the major operations
in the South Pacific, including Truk, Saipan, and the
Philippines. His closest call with death came not as a
result of enemy fire, however, but during a vicious
typhoon in the Philippine Sea in December 1944. He came
within inches of being swept overboard while the storm
raged. The ship, which was severely damaged by the storm
and the resulting fire, had to be taken out of service.
Ford spent the remainder of the war ashore and was
discharged as a lieutenant commander in February 1946.
When he returned to Grand Rapids Ford became a partner
in the locally prestigious law firm of Butterfield,
Keeney, and Amberg. A self-proclaimed compulsive
"joiner," Ford was well-known throughout the community.
Ford has stated that his experiences in World War II
caused him to reject his previous isolationist leanings
and adopt an internationalist outlook. With the
encouragement of his stepfather, who was county
Republican chairman, the Home Front, and Senator Arthur
Vandenberg, Ford decided to challenge the isolationist
incumbent Bartel Jonkman for the Republican nomination
for the U.S. House of Representatives in the 1948
election. He won the nomination by a wide margin and was
elected to Congress on November 2, receiving 61 percent
of the vote in the general election.
During the height of the campaign Gerald Ford married
Elizabeth Ann Bloomer Warren, a department store fashion
consultant. They were to have four children: Michael
Gerald, born March 14, 1950; John Gardner, born March
16, 1952; Steven Meigs, born May 19, 1956; and Susan
Elizabeth, born July 6, 1957.
Gerald Ford served in the House of Representatives from
January 3, 1949 to December 6, 1973, being reelected
twelve times, each time with more than 60% of the vote.
He became a member of the House Appropriations Committee
in 1951, and rose to prominence on the Defense
Appropriations Subcommittee, becoming its ranking
minority member in 1961. He once described himself as "a
moderate in domestic affairs, an internationalist in
foreign affairs, and a conservative in fiscal policy."
As his reputation as a legislator grew, Ford declined
offers to run for both the Senate and the Michigan
governorship in the early 1950s. His ambition was to
become Speaker of the House. In 1960 he was mentioned as
a possible running mate for Richard Nixon in the
presidential election. In 1961, in a revolt of the
"Young Turks," a group of younger, more progressive
House Republicans who felt that the older leadership was
stagnating, Ford defeated sixty-seven year old Charles
Hoeven of Iowa for Chairman of the House Republican
Conference, the number three leadership position in the
party.
In 1963 President Johnson appointed Ford to the Warren
Commission investigating the assassination of President
John F. Kennedy. In 1965 Ford co-authored, with John R.
Stiles, a book about the findings of the Commission,
Portrait of the Assassin. President Ford is the last
living member of the Warren Commission.
The battle for the 1964 Republican nomination for
president was drawn on ideological lines, but Ford
avoided having to choose between Rockefeller and
Goldwater by standing behind Michigan favorite son
George Romney.
In 1965 Ford was chosen by the Young Turks as their best
hope to challenge Charles Halleck for the position of
minority leader of the House. He won by a small margin
and took over the position early in 1965, holding it for
eight years.
Ford led Republican opposition to many of President
Johnson's programs, favoring more conservative
alternatives to his social welfare legislation and
opposing Johnson's policy of gradual escalation in
Vietnam. As minority leader Ford made more than
200 speeches a year all across the country, a
circumstance which made him nationally known.
n both the 1968 and 1972 elections Ford was a loyal
supporter of Richard Nixon, who had been a friend for
many years. In 1968 Ford was again considered as a vice
presidential candidate. Ford backed the President's
economic and foreign policies and remained on good terms
with both the conservative and liberal wings of the
Republican party.
Because the Republicans did not attain a majority in the
House, Ford was unable to reach his ultimate political
goal--to be Speaker of the House. Ironically, he did
become president of the Senate. When Spiro Agnew
resigned the office of Vice President of the United
States late in 1973, after pleading no contest to a
charge of income tax evasion, President Nixon was
empowered by the 25th Amendment to appoint a new vice
president. Presumably, he needed someone who could work
with Congress, survive close scrutiny of his political
career and private life, and be confirmed quickly. He
chose Gerald R. Ford. Following the most thorough
background investigation in the history of the FBI, Ford
was confirmed and sworn in on December 6, 1973.
The specter of the Watergate scandal, the break-in at
Democratic headquarters during the 1972 campaign and the
ensuing cover-up by Nixon administration officials, hung
over Ford's nine-month tenure as vice president. When it
became apparent that evidence, public opinion, and the
mood in Congress were all pointing toward impeachment,
Nixon became the first president in U.S. history to
resign from that office.
Gerald R. Ford took the oath of office as President of
the United States on August 9, 1974, stating that "the
long national nightmare is over. Our Constitution
works."
Within the month Ford nominated Nelson Rockefeller for
vice president. On December 19, 1974, Rockefeller was
confirmed by Congress, over the opposition of many
conservatives, and the country had a full complement of
leaders again.
One of the most difficult decisions of Ford's presidency
was made just a month after he took office. Believing
that protracted impeachment proceedings would keep the
country mired in Watergate and unable to address the
other problems facing it, Ford decided to grant a pardon
to Richard Nixon prior to the filing of any formal
criminal charges. Public reaction was mostly negative;
Ford was even suspected of having made a "deal" with the
former president to pardon him if he would resign. The
decision may have cost him the election in 1976, but
President Ford always maintained that it was the right
thing to do for the good of the country.
President Ford inherited an administration plagued by a
divisive war in Southeast Asia, rising inflation, and
fears of energy shortages. He faced many difficult
decisions including replacing Nixon's staff with his
own, restoring the credibility of the presidency, and
dealing with a Congress increasingly assertive of its
rights and powers.
In domestic policy, President Ford felt that through
modest tax and spending cuts, deregulating industries,
and decontrolling energy prices to stimulate production,
he could contain both inflation and unemployment. This
would also reduce the size and role of the federal
government and help overcome the energy shortage. His
philosophy is best summarized by one of his favorite
speech lines, "A government big enough to give us
everything we want is a government big enough to take
from us everything we have." The heavily Democratic
Congress often disagreed with Ford, leading to numerous
confrontations and his frequent use of the veto to
control government spending. Through compromise, bills
involving energy decontrol, tax cuts, deregulation of
the railroad and securities industries, and antitrust
law reform were approved.
In foreign policy, Ford and Secretary of State Kissinger
continued the policy of detente with the Soviet Union
and "shuttle diplomacy" in the Middle East. U.S.-Soviet
relations were marked by on-going arms negotiations, the
Helsinki agreements on human rights principles and East
European national boundaries, trade negotiations, and
the symbolic Apollo-Soyuz joint manned space flight.
Ford's personal diplomacy was highlighted by trips to
Japan and China, a 10-day European tour, and
co-sponsorship of the first international economic
summit meeting, as well as the reception of numerous
foreign heads of state, many of whom came in observance
of the U.S. Bicentennial in 1976.
With the fall of South Vietnam in 1975 as background,
Congress and the President struggled repeatedly over
presidential war powers, oversight of the CIA and covert
operations, military aid appropriations, and the
stationing of military personnel.
On May 14, 1975, in a dramatic move, Ford ordered U.S.
forces to retake the S.S. MAYAGUEZ, an American merchant
ship seized by Cambodian gunboats two days earlier in
international waters. The vessel was recovered and all
39 crewmen saved. In the preparation and execution of
the rescue, however, 41 Americans lost their lives.
On two separate trips to California in September 1975,
Ford was the target of assassination attempts. Both of
the assailants were women -- Lynette "Squeaky" Fromme
and Sara Jane Moore.
During the 1976 campaign, Ford fought off a strong
challenge by Ronald Reagan to gain the Republican
nomination. He chose Senator Robert Dole of Kansas as
his running mate and succeeded in narrowing Democrat
Jimmy Carter's large lead in the polls, but finally lost
one of the closest elections in history. Three televised
candidate debates were focal points of the campaign.
Upon returning to private life, President and Mrs. Ford
moved to California where they built a new house in
Rancho Mirage. President Ford's memoirs, A Time to Heal:
The Autobiography of Gerald R. Ford, were published in
1979.
Since leaving the White House in January 1977, President
Ford has lectured at 179 colleges and universities, on
such issues as Congressional/White House relations,
federal budget policies, and domestic and foreign policy
issues.
Associated with the American Enterprise Institute,
President Ford attends the annual Public Policy Week
Conference, and in 1982 established the AEI World Forum,
which he hosts annually in Vail/Beaver Creek, Colorado.
This is an international gathering of former and current
world leaders and business executives to discuss
political and business policies impacting current
issues.
In 1981, the Gerald R. Ford Library in Ann Arbor,
Michigan, and the Gerald R. Ford Museum in Grand Rapids,
Michigan, were dedicated. Since that time conferences at
either site have dealt with such subjects as the
Congress, the presidency and foreign policy;
Soviet-American relations; German reunification, the
Atlantic Alliance, and the future of American foreign
policy; national security requirements for the ‘90s;
humor and the presidency; and the role of First Ladies.
President Ford also hosts the William E. Simon Lecture
Series in Grand Rapids and Ann Arbor. Former Secretary
of the Treasury Simon and former Secretary of State
Henry Kissinger have been among the featured speakers.
Following the Humor and the Presidency Conference,
President Ford's book Humor and the Presidency was
published (1987).
Since leaving office, President Ford has continued to
actively participate in the political process and to
speak out on important political issues. The former
President is the recipient of numerous awards and honors
by many civic organizations. He is the recipient of many
honorary Doctor of Law degrees from various public and
private colleges and universities.
Brother Ford is a member of Capitol Forest No. 104, Tall
Cedars of Lebanon International.
Office of Gerald R. Ford
P.O. Box 927
Rancho Mirage, CA 92270
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