Gerald Rudolph Ford was born July 14th, 1913 in Omaha, Nebraska. He grew up attending Grand Rapids public schools and then attended The University of Michigan until 1935 where he was an all-star athlete and had received several offers to play professional football. Ford declined these offers and instead attended the University of Yale to practice law until 1941. After graduating from law school he moved back to Grand Rapids to practice law for a bit, and then in April of 1942 Ford joined the U.S. Navy where he served for nearly 4 years during WWII and was discharged in January of 1946 with the rank of lieutenant commander. After the Navy Ford got into politics which was his biggest interest. Ford was a politically conservative man, he opposed …show more content…
large government and the expansion of the federal government into areas such as education and health care. Ford decided to run for Congress in 1948 and won and ended up representing Grand Rapids until 1973 and he was the House Minority Leader from 1965-1973. In 1973 federal investigators charged Vice President Spiro Agnew with accepting bribes while serving as the governor and the vice president and he resigned from office on October 10, 1973. On October 12th, 1973 President Nixon nominated Gerald Ford to be the vice president. Ford served as Nixon’s vice president and defended him until Nixon resigned on August 9th, 1974 due to his part in the Watergate Scandal. As a result of this Gerald R. Ford became the 38th president of the United States and served until January 20th, 1977, and became the first president chosen under the 25th amendment. Ford’s first responsibility in office was to nominate a vice president, and he ended up choosing Nelson A. Rockefeller, who was a former governor of New York. This was the first time in the nation's history that the two highest offices were held by people that were not elected to them. The first major thing Ford did as the president of the United States was to grant Richard Nixon a pardon on September 8th, 1974 for his role in the Watergate Scandal.
Ford stated that he was granting Nixon “ a full, free and absolute pardon.” Ford backed up his decision to pardon Nixon as necessary to avoid a lengthy trial that could have potentially divided the country. Since Nixon was pardoned this excluded him from any federal criminal or civil prosecution. Many people claimed that Ford’s pardon of Nixon was granted in exchange for Nixon resigning . Other people argued that Nixon should have been brought to trial or at least admit his part in the Watergate Scandal. Public opinion polls showed that as many as 60 percent of Americans opposed the pardon. Ford wanted to put Watergate behind him and moved on to other …show more content…
issues. Eight days after the Nixon pardon Ford announced a clemency for draft evaders and deserters. The draft evaders were required to swear an oath of allegiance to the United States and perform two years of public service. The deserters were required to swear an oath of allegiance and serve two years in the branch that they fled from. Ford was criticized by veteran organizations because they thought the punishment was too lenient. Ford’s next focus was the economy, when Ford took office the rate of inflation was 12%, Ford identified this as public enemy number 1”. In October of 1974 he called for a 10-point plan called Whip Inflation Now (WIN) that included tax increases and spending cuts. WIN ended very quickly because by November of 1974 the biggest problem wasn’t inflation, it was now unemployment. Unemployment had reached a postwar high of 9%. To try and fix this Ford proposed to lower income taxes by $16 billion, congress eventually agreed to this and Ford even agreed to a slightly larger tax cut. This was modified to help those in the lower income bracket. Ford still remained firmly opposed to increasing government spending to stimulate the economy, in fact he called for reductions in government spending to keep the reductions down. Ford vetoed more than 50 bills that called for an increase in government spending, so this shows that Ford and Congress did not get along very well. Ford had to deal with many foreign issues such as the Vietnam War. It was likely that Saigon was going to fall to North Vietnamese troops, so he asked Congress for $722 million in military aid and $250 million for social and economic aid to help the South Vietnam government. Congress refused to give this aid so in April of 1975 Ford felt like he had no other option than to order the emergency evacuation of the remaining U.S. troops and all of those that had cooperated with the U.S. troops. So Ford had successfully withdrawn the United States from Vietnam. Nearly a month after removing the country from the Vietnam War Ford had to deal with another incident after Cambodian troops captured the Mayaguez (a U.S merchant ship) and its crew in the Gulf of Thailand. Ford called the capturing of the ship an act of piracy and he ordered the Marines to attack the island of Koh Tang. It turned out to be an unnecessary action because the Cambodians had decided to release the crew and remove them from the island. In the act of rescuing the crew members 41 Americans were killed while 50 were wounded. Ford also focused on easing tensions with the Soviet Union but this was hard for him because Congress was not supporting his decisions. Many attempts to try to resolve problems failed due to lack of support, finally in 1975 Ford got the support from Congress to ease tensions. He met with Soviet leader Leonid Brezhnev in Helsinki, Finland and the two agreed on a declaration of 10 principles that was signed by 35 nations who were participating in the Helsinki Conference on Security and Cooperation. The Helsinki Agreement made sure that the West and Eastern Europe recognized each other's boundaries after WWII. In 1976 Ford ran for reelection against Jimmy Carter and in the end he lost the election. The main reason he lost the election is because people didn’t necessarily like how he pardoned Nixon so this really hurt him. The other reason he lost the election is because at the end of his term there was high unemployment and people didn’t think it was going to get fixed by him. In conclusion I think Gerald Rudolph Ford was a good president.
Ford showed great experience as a president as he had served 4 years in the U.S. Navy and another 25 years in Congress. He also showed great courage in his decision to pardon Nixon, because he knew it was probably going to reflect the most on his self image but he did it because he thought it was the best for the country. Ford had good vision too, as he had many plans for trying to help the economy and the unemployment rate but not all of them worked. His honesty was another good thing about him, many people said that Ford had never told a lie as the president or said anything unkind to anyone. Ford never got the country into any major affairs, he was just there to fix the problems the country already had and fill in for
Nixon.
Ford’s political life began in 1917 when he announced his intention to seek election as a senator for the state of Michigan. Once his campaign began, the state’s majority appeared to favor Ford. This voter popularity was gained largely after Ford revealed his life story - the son of a simple farmer; he overcame many obstacles rising to the status of a multimillionaire business person and potential Michigan senator. Many voters also admired Ford for his engineering feats, his notably low costing automobiles, and the high salaries that he paid his employees. Running as a peace candidate and not claiming affiliation to a political party, Ford placed his name on both republican and democratic primary ballots. All of the democratic candidates withdrew from the primary race, securing the nomination for Henry Ford, while Truman H. Newberry would eventually win the republican nomination.
Henry Ford was a captain of industry. He owned Ford Motors, which was an automobile company. Ford was a man who always wanted his own way and he got it most of the time. The creation he is most famous for is the FORD MODEL T, the car for the commoners. His car became an instant hit amongst the people- the local people and the working class of people because it was very affordable and was not just for the rich. Ford was a very successful businessman but not particularly a nice guy. He expected a lot from his workers but thing is that he also cared for his workers, because he knew that not only were they dependent on him but also that he depended upon them, they were the ones due to which he was gaining popularity and success throughout America. Ford’s great strength was the manufacturing process for his cars. Instead of having people put together the entire car he created organized teams that added parts to the Model T as it moved down the assembly line, this lowered the production prices and also the time and energy required to put together the cars.
He initially ran for Congress in 1948 and remained a member of the House until becoming the Vice President in 1973. He served on the House Appropriations Committee, which decides how much money is going to be spent for what, after only his 2nd year of being a member. With this, he learned all of the ins and outs of the government: how it works and what works and what doesn’t work. Ford was also a supporter of the Marshall Plan and several other anti-communist initiatives. More importantly, he was a member of the Warren Commission as well, which investigated the assassination of John F. Kennedy. Not to forget, he also became the House Minority leader in 1965.
Historians on the opposing side believe that Nixon had a choice, but he choose the wrong one. He wanted to cover up the Watergate Scandal, and that was the turning point of his presidency. Maurice H. Stans explains, “Nixon was not a party to the Watergate break-in. That has been established, especially by the White House tapes beginning in June 1972, which showed his initial consternation at learning about it.” (Nixon 178) He could have turned the guilty party to the police, but he thought that it would end up hurting him.
Despite the fact that Gerald Ford began his presidency as the first president not chosen by the American people, he started with high approval ratings. These ratings were rather short lived then spiraled downward when Gerald Ford on September 8, 1974, granted, Richard Nixon a full pardon for his offenses against the United States of America in the Watergate scandal. This shocking event caused many Americans to wonder if Gerald Ford himself had previously made this agreement to pardon Nixon from the beginning. Ford declared that his reason to grant the pardon as an attempt to put the scandals in the past and close the wounds, this decision only had the reverse affect.
When Gerald Ford grew up, he went to the University of Michigan and started playing football there. As soon as he started playing football, he became a star at it. He was one of the best football players at the college. He graduated from the University of Michigan in 1935 and then went to Yale University in 1941. When Ford was in Yale, he earned a law degree and was known as a star gridiron – football player. During World War II, Ford joined the navy and served in the South Pacific. Then later in 1948, Ford met Betty Elizabeth Ann Bloomer Warren. This was the woman that Ford got married to. She later became known as; “Betty Ford” (britannica.org pg. 1). They had four children. Their names were Michael, John, Steven, and Susan.
Despite the national attention the Watergate scandal had gained President Nixon, he won the second term presidency. The major problem for Nixon would come later. The investigations of the Watergate scandal lead to the discovery of other criminal acts by officials including Nixon. During the investigation many things begin to surface. It was discovered that documents had been destroyed that may have made a link between Nixon and the Watergate scandal. These documents may have shown that he had some acknowledgement in what had happened. There was evidence that people involved in the Nixon campaign had been wire tapping phones illegally for a long time according to “dummies.com”. The greatest issue would come to light during the 1973 Watergate hearings. During testimonies it came to light that every conversation was recorded in the Oval office according to “study.com”. It was demanded that these tapes be reviewed to learn how much involvement President Nixon had in the Watergate burglary. The President felt that he had the right to withhold these tapes through what he referred to as executive privilege. This means that if it is the best interest of the public the president has the right to keep information from the
The Watergate Scandal was one of the biggest and first scandals in United States History. Nixon’s political rivals were recorded and harassed. Nixon was a very paranoid man, and the Democratic National Committee was bugged at the Watergate Hotel, there were also bugs at the White House. Five burglars were caught doing so and it was later realized that Nixon was connected to the scandal. It was proved that Nixon had a very big role behind all of the issues around Watergate and he felt guilty enough to resign. One can say that the resignation of Richard Nixon can be credited to the pressures imposed on him by the congress, the press, and the courts.
Despite his loss to JFK in the 1960 presidential election, in 1968, Richard M. Nixon was elected as the thirty-seventh president of the United States. He was praised by many for his comeback after previously losing an election and seemed to be an admirable man. While in office, Nixon made many achievements and followed through with all of his promises made during his campaign. For the first time in what seemed like forever, the American people had finally elected a leader who seemed unquestionably trustworthy – or so they thought. Unfortunately, shortly after Nixon was elected to his second term of presidency in 1972, the Watergate Scandal changed America forever by creating a sense of mistrust toward the government for the American people because of The Nixon Administration’s actions.
Throughout his career, which spanned nearly fifty years, he worked for such studios as Universal, Fox Film Corporation, RKO, United Artists, 20th Century Fox, Republic Pictures, and Warner Brothers. John Ford was born to Irish immigrants on February 1, 1894 or 1895, in Cape Elizabeth, Maine. His birth name was Sean Aloysius O’Fearna (Feeney). He changed his name when he began his career in the film industry. John’s brother, Frances Ford, took him under his wing and showed him the ropes.
For many people, the first word that comes to mind when they think about the Nixon administration is Watergate, the political scandal the scarred the sacredness of the White House during the 1970’s. Was Watergate necessary, and did he need to be so paranoid about others? Did Nixon have a choice in resigning? Watergate was an unnecessary event that led to Richard Nixon’s downfall.
Gerald Ford, the thirty-eighth President of the United States, was born on July 14, 1913 in Omaha, Nebraska to Dorothy Ayer Gardner King and Leslie Lynch King. Ford was named after his father, Leslie Lynch King Jr., who was later divorces by his mother because of domestic violence problems. After divorcing Leslie Lynch King, Ford’s mother moved the two to Grand Rapids, Michigan where she met Gerald R. Ford. Ford’s mother called her son Gerald R. Ford Jr., and his name was legally changed in 1935. Gerald Ford went to South High School where he shined athletically and academically. He then proceeded to go the the University of Michigan in Ann Harbor and majored in economics. Ford excelled at the sport of football and was voted the most valuable player in 1934. Because of his skills in football, Ford received two proposals from the Detroit Lions and the Green Bay Packers. Ford declined and chose to be a boxing coach as well as an assist at varsity football coach at Yale. Ford chose Yale because he wanted to practice law. Ford graduated with his L.L.B. (Bachelor of Law Degree) in 1941 and in the top twenty-five percent of his class. In the April of 1942, Ford joined the U.S. Naval Reserve and practiced physical fitness. Later in life, Ford would marry Elizabeth Anne Bloomer and they would have four children together.
Immediately after President Nixon’s resignation, his Vice President, Gerald Ford became president. There were many good and bad aspects of his presidency. As president, Ford was able to cut the inflation of the 1970s by more than half. He was able to do his by providing over 4 million people with jobs. Among his failures as a president, was the pardoning of Nixon for his crimes. This angered the people of America who wanted to see the former president brought to justice, causing much controversy and skepticism concerning the presidency. After President Ford’s term had come to an end, President Carter was elected into office. As with any other president, Carter had many successes and failures. As president, Carter was able to establish full
Nixon was being an obstruction to justice and should have had a more serious consequence than just resigning from office. While all of this was happening several other people were indicated on charges related to the Watergate affair. Out of the seven five pleaded guilty and avoided trial. The other two waited for their trial and were then convicted in January of 1973.
Vice President Gerald Ford took his place as president and controversially pardoned Nixon for any crimes committed while in