Gerald Ford

The passing of any American president is indeed a sad affair, even if you do not agree with their political views. After the nightmare of Watergate ruined the American public trust in the American presidency, former House Minority Leader, Gerald Ford did attempt to run the presidency in an honest manner compared to the scandal ridden Richard Nixon Administration.

Gerald Ford became the only unelected president in American history, but served for one of the shortest periods ever at only two years before losing to Georgia Governor Jimmy Carter.

While Ford did manage to build on the Nixon overtures to China with a second visit since the Nixon years, and continued "detente" with the Soviets as well as signing the Helsinki Accords, many other foreign policy objectives as well as domestic policies were more failure prone.

When the Khmer Rouge Communists seized control in Cambodia and seized the American merchant ship, Mayaguez, in international waters, Ford launched a botched rescue mission to the wrong island that lost the lives of 41 U.S. Marines and wounded 50 more, and killed 60 Khmer Rouge Communists. Poor U.S. intelligence failed to note that the crew of the Mayaguez had already been released by the Cambodian Communists before the U.S. troops lost their lives.

Rather than use the bold wage and price controls of the Nixon Administration, Ford instead encouraged the use of WIN buttons by the public, which stood for "whip inflation now". This was of course a laughable failure, with gas prices and other prices suffering from sharp inflation.

Ford failed to prevent the fall of Saigon to the North Vietnamese military drive in 1975, and force the parties that signed the 1973 peace agreement in Paris to respect their signatures intent on the document. This resulted in mass evacuations to the U.S. of Vietnamese who had ties to U.S. forces from the U.S. Embassy in Vietnam as North Vietnamese tanks rolled into Saigon.

In 1976, Ford nearly lost his party's nomination to a strong challenge from the far more conservative Ronald Reagan. Ford seemed to mark the last of the mainstream conservatives by the Repulican Party before pulling much farther to the right after Reagan became president.

Despite being involved in politics since 1948, and a longtime member of Congress as well as the House Minority Leader, Ford seemed unable to work as well with Congress as even Richard Nixon, with many veto battles with Congress rather than coopersation and compromise.

As an expresident, Ford was often seen playing golf while Jimmy Carter built homes for low income persons or Bill Clinton and George Bush were involved in humanitarian fundraising efforts. But his wife, Betty was often a popular first lady figure.

Twice mentally ill women made attempts on his life, including one associated with the murderous cult of Charles Manson. Thankfully alert secret service agents foiled both bizarre attempts. But Ford was also well known for some clumsy falls, which became the subject of many Chevy Chase jokes, of which Ford did share some good hearted laughs from. Thankfully Ford was never seriously injured from these falls. But Ford managed to give the nation more safety and security scares than any president in recent memory.

By no means will Gerald Ford be remembered as a great president. But he was an honest man who mainly served as a caretaker president while the nation looked for someone better to represent them. Ford does deserve the high honors that the small number of men who served as president have been bestowed. It is indeed a sad day for America regardless of your politics.