Posted to General on
By Steve Gorman - Reuters
Los Angeles, CA - Gerald Ford, whose brief U.S. presidency is remembered mainly for his controversial pardon of Richard Nixon, was honored on Wednesday as a man who tried to heal a divided country.

The oldest living president at 93, Ford died on Tuesday of undisclosed causes at his home in California.

Ford was the only U.S. president not elected to either the presidency or vice presidency. He was appointed vice president in 1973 after Nixon's vice president, Spiro Agnew, resigned to avoid prosecution on corruption charges.

Ex-president Gerald Ford dies

By Steve Gorman – Reuters

Los Angeles, CA – Gerald Ford, whose brief U.S. presidency is remembered mainly for his controversial pardon of Richard Nixon, was honored on Wednesday as a man who tried to heal a divided country.

The oldest living president at 93, Ford died on Tuesday of undisclosed causes at his home in California.

Ford was the only U.S. president not elected to either the presidency or vice presidency. He was appointed vice president in 1973 after Nixon’s vice president, Spiro Agnew, resigned to avoid prosecution on corruption charges.

Then Nixon, the only U.S. president to resign, quit on August 9, 1974 to avoid impeachment for covering up the politically motivated burglary of the Democratic National Committee headquarters at the Watergate complex in Washington.

In his inaugural address, Ford famously vowed to Americans that “our long national nightmare is over.”

One month later, on September 8, 1974, Ford stirred enduring controversy by granting Nixon “a full, free and absolute pardon” for any crime he may have committed in office.

Ford, who had served 26 as a congressman from Michigan, defended the pardon until his death.

The Watergate scandal sparked a constitutional crisis which, along with the Vietnam War, shattered Americans’ faith in their political system and marked the climax of a bitterly divisive political era encompassing racial conflict and the counterculture movement of the 1960s.

President George W. Bush, speaking from his ranch in Crawford, Texas, said that Ford had helped heal the nation — a sentiment that was echoed by former Democrat presidents Jimmy Carter and Bill Clinton.

“For a nation that needed healing and an office that needed a calm and steady hand, Gerald Ford came along when we needed him most,” Bush said. He ordered that the American flag be displayed at half-staff at the White House and other U.S. government and military buildings for 30 days.

Ford’s 2-1/2 year presidency included two assassination attempts; the fall of Vietnam; Cambodian seizure of a U.S. freighter, which prompted him to “send in the Marines;” constant fights with Congress; and a stumbling, head-cracking clumsiness that made him a butt of jokes.

THE PATH OF HEALING

Ford, a Navy officer in World War II, revived questions about his intellect and grasp of issues with a notorious gaffe in a televised campaign debate against Carter in 1976. He asserted in defense of his foreign policies that “there is no Soviet domination of Eastern Europe.”

He fell just short in a fight to overcome Carter’s 30-point lead in the polls and lost one of the closest elections in U.S. history.

Carter later became a friend and on Wednesday described Ford as a man who rose above Washington bipartisanship.

“An outstanding statesman, he wisely chose the path of healing during a deeply divisive time in our nation’s history,” Carter said in a statement.

Ford had been ailing and largely out of the public eye for several years. He died at 6:45 p.m. (0245 GMT) on Tuesday at his home in Rancho Mirage, his office said.

“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,” his wife Betty Ford said in a statement.

“His life was filled with love of God, his family and his country.”

His death leaves three living former presidents — George H.W. Bush, Carter and Clinton. Bush is the oldest at 82, a few months senior to Carter.

“To his great credit, he (Ford) was the same hard-working, down-to-earth person the day he left the White House as he was when he first entered Congress almost 30 years earlier,” Clinton and his wife, Sen. Hillary Clinton, said in a statement.

Ford, who was born in Omaha, Nebraska, on July 14, 1913, is survived by four children and his wife of 58 years, Betty Ford, who won many admirers for her personal battles against breast cancer and prescription drug and alcohol addiction. The Betty Ford Center she helped found in 1982 is viewed as a top center for treating drug and alcohol abuse.

Funeral services, expected to take place after his body lies in state, were to be held in Washington and Grand Rapids, Michigan, his boyhood home.

For an extensive history and biography check out Wikipedia

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15 Comments

  • Yosef

    It should be noted that President Ford was the first US President to officialy participate in a Chabad event honoring the Rebbe. It would be nice to hear some of this history from Rabbi Shemtov.

  • Mission statement...?

    How does this have any connection with Crown Heights and/or Lubavitch news?
    Why don’t we leave the outside news to outside sources?

  • sara

    An “X” president is one who was impeached.

    Ford was a “former” president. he was not impeached.

  • vivi

    oh my goodness.. there ALWAYS has to be a negative comment in every article..

    this isn’t a boro park community or a lakewood community where everything is shut out!

    it’s OK to know news that isn’t ‘completely jewish’

  • Grammar Gal

    Attention Grammer Man: Grammar is spelled g-r-a-m-m-A-r!
    it’s pretty ironic.. thanks for the laugh!

  • Grammer Geek

    grammer man- I was going to write the same thing, then I read your comment!
    GOOD MOVE!

  • sort of an expert

    uh… it doesn’t make a difference if ford is refered to as “ex” or as “former”.

    why?

    because both terms connote the same: an individual who served in the capacity as president, but no longer serves.

    there is no term to recognize an impeached president (of which only two cases have occured — johnson and clinton).

    i have a master’s degree in american history, with an emphasis in presidential history.

  • Mottel

    X president is one who chases science fictions creatures. Former living person would work. Short-lived president might work, but the short-lived is reserved for the actual presidency.

    The headline should read: Gerald Ford, best known as the president who forgave his enemies for the sake of peace, is gone. Or rather, the headline should be whatever the owner of this site wants it to read.

  • an upset reader

    Webby- you really should be careful. Ex and former are different. Ex- “a previous spouse”
    Ex- “slang”
    Former- “ talking place earlier in time”
    I am quoting the Webster’s II Dictionary

    Webby- Did you write the article or did you get it from some newspaper. If the article was written by someone else they really should be fired from their job. ANd to think that was not stopped by some editor? The newspaper it came from should really be ashamed.