Gerald Ford Passes Away At 93
Gerald R. Ford, who picked up the pieces of Richard Nixon’s scandal-shattered White House as the 38th and only unelected president in America’s history, has died, his wife, Betty, said Tuesday. He was 93.
“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,” Mrs. Ford said in a brief statement issued from her husband’s office in Rancho Mirage. “His life was filled with love of God, his family and his country.”
The statement did not say where Ford died or list a cause of death. Ford had battled pneumonia in January 2006 and underwent two heart treatments—including an angioplasty—in August at the Mayo Clinic in Rochester, Minn.
He was the longest living president, followed by Ronald Reagan, who also died at 93. Ford had been living at his desert home in Rancho Mirage, Calif., about 130 miles east of Los Angeles.
He was the only President ever to achieve that office without actually getting elected to it (he was appointed as VP to replace Spiro Agnew by Nixon, and then replaced Nixon himself when he resigned). He also survived two assassination attempts, one by a member of the Manson family.
To this observer who wasn’t even alive while Ford was in office (I’m not even old enough to remember first-hand Chevy Chase’s lampooning of him on Saturday Night Live), he always seemed like a nice man who got stuck cleaning up messes others had created. He was often criticized for pardoning Nixon (something that most historians agree cost him the Presidential election in 1976), but I always thought of that as a brave move. As much of a crook as Nixon was, and as much as he deserved to be held accountable for his actions, that pardon saved this country years heartache and controversy. Nixon was already gone by the time Ford was in office. Pardoning him and allowing the nation to move on was the right move, and Ford made it even though it probably cost him his career.
He wasn’t my kind of conservative, but he seemed honest and straightforward, two qualities rare in politicians of any era.
It’s sad to see him go.
