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Gerald Ford
1913–2006 · 93 years Tier III
He was born Leslie King and changed everything, including the name
His mother left the marriage 16 days after he was born in Omaha, taking the baby with her. She remarried a Grand Rapids paint salesman named Gerald Rudolff Ford, the boy went by his stepfather's name from 1917 onward, and a court made it official on December 3, 1935. In between he made Eagle Scout in 1927 and played center and linebacker for Michigan teams that took national titles in 1932 and 1933, and was voted its most valuable player in a losing 1934 season. The Lions and the Packers both offered contracts. He turned them down for Yale, where he coached boxing and argued his way into the law school, finishing in the top third in 1941. The war put him on the light carrier USS Monterey.
Twenty-five years in the House from Michigan's fifth district, nearly nine of them as Republican leader, plus a seat on the Warren Commission. Then Spiro Agnew resigned and the 25th Amendment made him vice president on December 6, 1973, and Nixon resigned and made him president on August 9, 1974. He pardoned his predecessor a month later and lost the 1976 election by about two points. The pardon, the economy and the fall of Saigon are BriefHistory's ground. Underneath that term there is a marriage worth more attention than the term got.
Betty Bloomer had danced with Martha Graham's company at Carnegie Hall and come out of a five-year first marriage before she met him. They married on October 15, 1948, two weeks before his first election. Twenty-six years later, three weeks into being first lady, she had a mastectomy on September 28, 1974 and said so publicly at a time when newspapers would not print the word — screening rates jumped across the country. She then backed the Equal Rights Amendment and legal abortion out loud, against most of her husband's party. In April 1978, 14 months out of the White House, her family staged an intervention, she entered the naval hospital at Long Beach for alcohol and painkillers, and she announced that too. The Betty Ford Center opened in 1982.
He spent retirement being slowly forgiven for the thing that cost him the office. In 2001 the Kennedy Library gave him its Profile in Courage Award for the pardon, and Ted Kennedy, who had condemned it at the time, handed it over — roughly where the historical verdict has come to rest. Ford died at Rancho Mirage on December 26, 2006 at 93, then the longest any president had lived, a mark Jimmy Carter later passed. The Navy commissioned a carrier under his name in 2017. His most durable act may be the quietest: on February 19, 1976, 34 years to the day after Roosevelt signed it, Ford formally terminated Executive Order 9066 and said the evacuation had been wrong.
Lifespan
Gerald Ford's life against the full span of the corpus.
Notable works
-
Portrait of the Assassin
book
His account of the Warren Commission, written with John R. Stiles 1965 -
Pardon of Richard Nixon
other
Proclamation 4311, issued 31 days into the term 1974 -
Nomination of John Paul Stevens
other
His only Supreme Court appointment. Stevens sat for 34 years. 1975 -
Helsinki Accords
other
Signed with 34 other nations — the human rights language outlasted the detente 1975 -
An American Promise
other
Proclamation 4417, terminating Executive Order 9066 with an apology 1976 -
A Time to Heal
book
The presidential memoir 1979
Life in brief
with age at each point- 1927 aged ~14 Earns Eagle Scout at 14 Still the only president to have done so.
- 1934 aged ~21 Voted Michigan's most valuable player, then turns down the NFL Both the Lions and the Packers made offers.
- December 18, 1944 aged 31 Typhoon Cobra sets the USS Monterey on fire Ford went below to assess the damage. The storm sank three destroyers.
- October 15, 1948 aged 35 Marries Betty Bloomer two weeks before his first election
- November 29, 1963 aged 50 Appointed to the Warren Commission
- December 6, 1973 aged 60 Sworn in as vice president under the 25th Amendment The first person appointed to the office rather than elected to it.
- September 28, 1974 aged 61 Betty Ford discloses her mastectomy and changes a national conversation Screening rates rose sharply afterward.
- February 19, 1976 aged 62 Formally terminates Executive Order 9066 Thirty-four years to the day after Roosevelt signed it.
- December 26, 2006 aged 93 Dies at Rancho Mirage, California, at 93
Related
Contemporaries
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