Contents:
In Ford's presidential aspirations were subjected to a bitter struggle for the nomination with fellow Republican, Ronald Reagan, the then Governor of California. It was not Reagan's year, and he declined the offer to run as Ford's Vice President, though the position was offered. Ford ran, instead, with Robert Dole of Kansas. Gerald Ford, who remains the only non-elected President of the United States, went on to lose the election to Georgia Governor and peanut farmer, Jimmy Carter. His defeat was attributed to an economic recession and high inflation.
He is best known for his personal qualities, for being a good sport. Ironically, in light of the fact that he was such an athlete, Ford is also affectionately remembered for being clumsy. He and his wife, Betty, brought an aura of family back to the White House.
Betty Ford gained prominence in her own right as a spokesperson for the fight against breast cancer and for her battle with alcoholism, which led to the founding of "The Betty Ford Clinic. Ford died of heart failure at the age of 93 on December 26, at his home in Rancho Mirage, California of heart failure.
Harrison John Tyler - James K. Hayes James Garfield - Chester A. Republican Vice President s: Pardon of Richard Nixon, Fall of Cambodia. Ford's paternal grandfather Charles Henry King paid child support until shortly before his death in Ford later said his biological father had a history of hitting his mother. Cannon, a member of the Ford administration, wrote in a Ford biography that the Kings' separation and divorce were sparked when, a few days after Ford's birth, Leslie King threatened Dorothy with a butcher knife and threatened to kill her, Ford, and Ford's nursemaid.
Ford later told confidantes that his father had first hit his mother on their honeymoon for smiling at another man.
After two and a half years with her parents, on February 1, , Dorothy married Gerald Rudolff Ford, a salesman in a family-owned paint and varnish company. They then called her son Gerald Rudolff Ford, Jr. The future president was never formally adopted , however, and he did not legally change his name until December 3, ; he also used a more conventional spelling of his middle name. Ford also had three half-siblings from his father's second marriage: They never saw one another as children and he did not know them at all.
United States elections, Ford took the loss in stride, however, telling friends that he had planned to retire from Congress that year anyway. To become House Speaker, Ford worked to help Republicans across the country get a majority in the chamber, often traveling on the rubber chicken circuit. Supreme Court decision which stated that a pardon indicated a presumption of guilt, and that acceptance of a pardon was tantamount to a confession of that guilt. At the time of his discharge, he held the rank of lieutenant commander. During Ford's senior year, a controversy developed when Georgia Tech said that it would not play a scheduled game with Michigan if a black player named Willis Ward took the field.
Ford was not aware of his biological father until he was 17, when his parents told him about the circumstances of his birth. That year his father Leslie King, whom Ford described as a "carefree, well-to-do man who didn't really give a damn about the hopes and dreams of his firstborn son", approached Ford while he was waiting tables in a Grand Rapids restaurant.
Gerald Rudolph Ford Jr was an American politician who served as the 38th President of the United States from August to January Before his. The presidency of Gerald Ford began on August 9, , when Gerald Ford.
Ford said, "My stepfather was a magnificent person and my mother equally wonderful. So I couldn't have written a better prescription for a superb family upbringing. He is the only U. Nixon then chose Ford to be his next Vice President. Ford had to be approved by Congress since there was no Presidential election that year. Because he had been in Congress for a long time, other Congressmen knew him well and were happy to approve him as Vice President because they thought he was honest.
However, Ford was not Nixon's first choice. But, Nixon was worried that these other men might have trouble getting approved by Congress. All of them had also run for President already or were planning to run soon. He had no mandate and no broad political base, his party was tainted by Watergate, and he angered many when he granted Nixon an unconditional pardon on September 8, Henry Kissinger remained secretary of….
While Gerald Ford was still an infant, his parents were divorced, and his mother moved to Grand Rapids , Michigan, where she married Gerald R. After graduating from the University of Michigan , where he was a star gridiron-football player, Ford worked as an assistant coach while he earned a law degree from Yale University He joined the navy during World War II and served in the South Pacific, attaining the rank of lieutenant commander and nearly losing his life in during a deadly typhoon that killed hundreds.
In , the year he won his first elective office, as Republican congressman from Michigan, he married Elizabeth Anne Bloomer Betty Ford , with whom he had four children—three sons Michael, John, and Steven and one daughter Susan. Ford served in Congress for 25 years. Well-liked and ideologically flexible, he won the role of House minority leader in and held this position until Nixon named him vice president in During his time in Congress, he had developed a reputation for honesty and openness.
Agnew , was forced to resign from office in disgrace, the president had no choice but to nominate the only Republican whom the Democratic leadership of Congress would approve, the affable Jerry Ford.
In , when it became clear that Nixon would face criminal charges for his role in the Watergate scandal and three articles of impeachment had been passed by the House Judiciary Committee, Nixon resigned, effective August 9. See primary source document: First Address to Congress and the Nation. See also Cabinet of President Gerald Ford. The most attention-getting act of his years in office, and the move that for many destroyed his credibility, followed in the next month. Afterward Ford voluntarily appeared before a subcommittee of the House of Representatives on October 17 to explain his reasoning—the first time a standing president had formally testified before a committee of Congress.
In another startling move, Ford annoyed members of his own party by naming Nelson A.
The result was a very severe recession in —75, which succeeded in lowering inflation but at the cost of an unemployment rate that rose to nearly 9 percent. Legislative gridlock set in. During the final days of the Vietnam War , in March , Ford ordered an airlift of some , anticommunist Vietnamese refugees from Da Nang , most of whom were taken to the United States. They succeeded, but the rescue operation to save the member crew resulted in the loss of 41 American lives and the wounding of 50 others.
Twice in September , Ford was the target of assassination attempts. In the first instance, Secret Service agents intervened before shots were fired; in the second, the would-be assassin fired one shot at Ford but missed by several feet.