An unelected president shone at crucial moment

In Washington, Ford quickly developed a reputation as a loyal Republican and hard worker. He wangled a spot on the powerful Appropriations Committee, and, with the help of other young members dissatisfied with the GOP old bulls, won election to the party's congressional leadership.

In 1965 he was elected House minority leader. But his long-held goal, speaker of the House, seemed as far away as ever, as Democrats kept control of the chamber in election after election.

Some thought him stolid. Others knew better.

"There is an inscrutability about Jerry," one of his friends told the Grand Rapids newsman Bud Vestal in 1974. "You think you know him, but there's always one layer of reserve between you and Jerry's inner self."

By '74 he was tired of laboring in the minority. That term would be his last, he figured – he'd go back to Grand Rapids in 1976.

But then came the scandals of the Nixon presidency. Vice President Spiro Agnew resigned in 1973, after being accused of taking bribes in political office. Nixon knew Ford from years of service together in Congress; some newsmen had even speculated in 1968 that Ford would be his running mate. When Nixon announced his new choice for vice president at a White House ceremony, members of Congress in the audience raised a deafening cheer.

"They like you," Nixon said to Ford as they stood on the podium.

"I have a couple of friends out there," said Ford, as the applause continued.

Then the Watergate crisis deepened and, less than a year later, Nixon, too, resigned. Ex-jock, ex-model, a man who'd come home at night covered with paint after working in his father's paint and varnish factory as a boy, Ford was president of the United States.

On Sept. 14, 1974, President Ford opened a National Security Council (NSC) meeting on the Strategic Arms Limitation Talks (SALT) nuclear-reduction talks with a short, cogent statement of the principles at stake.

SALT was good for the country, Ford said; the US had the "obligation" of finding common ground for agreement. Better to go in with that attitude than a cynical or skeptical one, which might itself block the way forward.

"Not any agreement is acceptable ... but reaching an agreement is in our best interests," he said. "We should proceed on the basis that this is the case."

To the cabinet, accustomed to Nixon's long, rambling harangues, these words must have seemed a revelation. They were modest, yet unarguable, and after the president delivered them, he shut up. Not entirely – he asked a question here and there. But in the main, he let his advisers convince him, rather than the other way around.

To pore through the minutes of Ford's presidential meetings is to see a leader who is far from a bumbler. In at least one NSC meeting he corrected a member of the Joint Chiefs of Staff about the military's own budget. But as president he did not force decisions. He had a sense of humor, even about his infamous falls, including one he took on a state visit to Austria.

"In Austria, the president indicated he tumbled into Austria," read the minutes of a June 4, 1975, cabinet meeting, "but he really felt that Betty had tripped him, then ran away and left him to get to his feet all by himself."

But it wasn't enough to win his election to the office he'd inherited. Barely a month into his presidency, Ford pardoned Nixon for any crimes he might have committed. Eighty percent of Americans disapproved; even Ford's press secretary, Jerry terHorst, resigned.

Ford's popularity recovered, and the nation was spared a divisive trial, but the pardon remained a drag on Ford's poll ratings. In 1976, he was beaten by Democrat Jimmy Carter, who won fewer states but more electoral votes.

Ford was the only Michigander, and the first Eagle Scout, to become president. He was the first appointed vice president (the second was his own vice president, Nelson Rockefeller), and the only unelected chief executive of the US. He was the only president whose motorcade was involved in an auto accident, and he held the record for number of presidential assassination attempts (two).

Yet he may forever be best known for this: He was his own man, and not Richard Nixon. For the United States, at a crucial point in its history, that was enough.

As Donald Rumsfeld, who served as Ford's Defense secretary, said in 1986: "It was a time to heal, and Gerald Ford did it as few others could have."

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