#38 Gerald Ford- The Unelected President

#38 Gerald Ford- The Unelected President

Ford made a name for himself playing football for the University of Michigan (1932-1934). He almost quit the team his senior year after the team pulled his best friend Willis Ward from a game because Georgia Tech Yellow Jackets refused to take the field with an African-American, Ward talked him out of it though.

After College he turned down contracts from Detroit Lions and Green Bay Packers, opting to coach football in Yale instead where he eventually got admitted to Yale Law School (1938) graduating in the top 25 and getting admitted to the Michigan bar (1941). He went on to be commissioned in the U.S Navy (1942-1946) where he served in World War II, on board the U.S.S. Monterey where he almost went overboard.

After his military service he got back into politics, serving as a of Michigan’s house of representatives (1949-1973) becoming chairman (1963-1965) and minority leader (1965-1973) before eventually being put on as Nixon’s Vice President (1973-1974).

U.S.S. MONTEREY

FORD WAS ON DECK AT THIS POINT AND ALMOST WENT OVERBOARD BUT WAS ABLE TO CATCH HIMSELF, TWIST AND JUMP TO THE LOWER DECK

1974;

• Ford becomes the 38th President of the United States at the age of 61.
• Ford grants Richard Nixon a full pardon; his approval rating slips to 49 percent.

• Ford issues a proclamation of conditional amnesty for those who deserted or dodged the Vietnam War by performing alternative services.
• Ford forms the Economic Policy Board, which will oversee all aspects of economic policy.
• Ford speaks to a joint session of Congress. He calls for a temporary 5 percent tax hike, cuts in federal spending, and the creation of a voluntary inflation-fighting organization, named “Whip Inflation Now”
• Ford signs the Federal Elections Campaign Act of 1974, the most significant attempt at campaign finance reform since the 1920s.
• Ford makes a visit to Japan, the first by an American President.
• The Freedom of Information Act is passed over Ford’s veto. It provides expanded access to government files and allows secrecy classifications to be challenged in court and justified by the appropriate federal authorities.

1975;

• The House approves Ford’s selection of Nelson A. Rockefeller, as his vice president.
• Ford signs the Privacy Act of 1974, ensuring the right of Americans to individual privacy
• Ford announces the creation of the Rockefeller Commission, their intent is to review abuses by the C.I.A.
• Ford proposes a $16 billion tax cut in his State of the Union Address
• The Commission on Civil Rights reports that the proportion of blacks in mostly white schools was higher in the South than in the North
• Following the fall of the city of Ban Me Thout, and the Hue-Da Nang Campaign, the city of Saigon falls to the North Vietnamese causing the South to surrender and the Vietnam War to end. Ford has the remaining Americans evacuated from the capital city.

NORTH VIETNAMESE TANK ROLLING THROUGH THE PRESIDENTIAL PALACE GATES IN SAIGON

• Ford tells the nation he will reluctantly sign the Tax Reduction Act of 1975, which calls for a $22.8 billion tax cut.
• Unemployment rises to 8.7 percent, the highest since 1941
• Cambodia falls to Khmer Rouge, a communist party of Cambodia

CAMBODIA FALLS

• The Mayaguez Incident starts up as Cambodia (Khmer Rouge) seizes the U.S. merchant ship and takes its crew hostage.

• Marines move onto Koh Tang, an island off the shore of Cambodia believed to hold the captured sailors of the Mayaguez. Fierce fighting kills fifteen Marines, but the sailors are not found.

MARINES MOVING IN ON KOH TANG ISLAND

• Ford orders airstrikes on the Cambodian mainland. Shortly after the crew of the Mayaguez is released but battles still go on as marines try to pull out. The Battle of Koh Tang was the last battle of Vietnam

• Unemployment reaches its highest point at 9.2 percent.
• Ford signs the Helsinki Accords on European security and cooperation during his trip in Europe
• Egypt and Israel sign the second-stage Sinai withdrawal agreement
• A Charles Manson follower; Lynette “Squeaky” Fromme attempts to assassinate President Ford in San Francisco with her Colt .45 but a secret service agent stopped her.

FROMME BEING DETAINED BY SECRET SERVICE

• Sara Jane Moore attempts to assassinate Ford but misses her first shot and gets tackled by an ex-marine on her second, deflected the bullet and narrowly missing the President.

SECRET SERVICE RUSHING FORD TO HIS CAR AFTER MOORE ATTEMPTED TO ASSASSINATE HIM

• Ford addresses the nation via television asking for a reduction of $28 billion in taxes and spending
• Ford refuses to give federal economic aid to New York City. Instead he advises the city to use financial restraint. The next day, the headline of the New York Daily News reads: Ford to City—Drop Dead.

• Ford signs the Energy Policy Conservation Act

1976;

• Unemployment drops from 8.3 to 7.8
• The Concorde supersonic jet makes its first flight between Europe and the United States.

FIRST CONCORDE SUPERSONIC JET LIFTS OFF FOR ITS FIRST COMMERCIAL RUN

• Ford builds up the country’s strategic oil reserve in order to protect the United States from another foreign embargo
• A memorial grove is dedicated to Lyndon B. Johnson off the Potomac River

LYNDON B. JOHNSON MEMORIAL

• Fords signs a treaty with the Soviet Union limiting underground nuclear testing as part of the Helsinki Accords.
• Following the murder of the American ambassador and his aide, Ford orders Operation Fluid Drive to evacuate the 116 Americans and 146 third-country nationals from Lebanon.
• A memorial building and statue are dedicated to James Madison in Washington D.C.

JAMES MADISON STATUE

• Viking I lands on Mars.

VIKING 1 ON THE MARS

• The Labor Department announces that employment has risen by 3.8 million people
• Mao Zedong dies, leaving China in a state of unrest.
• As many as ninety members of Congress are implicated in a scandal for accepting illegal gifts from an agent of the South Korean government, dubbed Korea-Gate.
• The administration announces that it plans to store as many as 500 million barrels of crude oil in salt dunes on the Gulf Coast
• Ford proposes that Puerto Rico become the fifty-first state without consulting Congress; critics contend that the proposal violates the principle of self-determination.

Ford was unsuccessful in winning a second term and goes down as the only President and Vice President to ever hold those titles without actually being elected to them. After his Presidency he stayed close to politics and still worked on foreign affairs such as making numerous trips outside of the country for diplomatic reasons and attended memorial’s on the President’s behalf at times, as well as dealing with domestic issues.

Famous quotes;

“A government big enough to give you everything you want is a government big enough to take from you everything you have.”

“Our constitution works. Our great republic is a government of laws, not of men.”

“All of us who served in one war or another know very well that all wars are the glory and the agony of the young.“