Presidency of Gerald Ford

Presidency of Gerald Ford
38th President of the United States
In office August 9, 1974 – January 20, 1977
Vice President	none (August–December 1974) Nelson Rockefeller (1974–1977)
Preceded by	Richard M. Nixon
Succeeded by	Jimmy Carter
Born	July 14, 1913(1913-07-14) Omaha, Nebraska
Died	December 26, 2006 (aged 93) Rancho Mirage, California
Birth name	Leslie Lynch King, Jr.
Nationality	America
Political party	Republican
Spouse(s)	Elizabeth Bloomer Warren
Children	Michael Gerald Ford John Gardner Ford Steven Meigs Ford Susan Elizabeth Ford
Alma mater	University of Michigan, Yale Law School
Occupation	Lawyer
Religion	Episcopalian
Signature

Gerald Ford's Presidency of the United States spanned 29 months, lasting from August 9, 1974 to January 20, 1977.

Accession

Gerald Ford is sworn in as the 38th President of the United States by Chief Justice Warren Burger, while Betty Ford looks on

When President Richard Nixon resigned in the wake of the Watergate scandal on August 9, 1974, Ford assumed the presidency. Immediately after taking the oath of office in the East Room of the White House, he spoke to the assembled audience in a speech broadcast live to the nation. Ford noted the peculiarity of his position: "I am acutely aware that you have not elected me as your president by your ballots, and so I ask you to confirm me as your president with your prayers."^[1] On August 20 Ford nominated former New York Governor Nelson Rockefeller to fill the vice presidency he had vacated. Rockefeller was confirmed by the House and Senate,^[2] and was sworn in December 19, 1974.

Administration and Cabinet

President Ford meets with his Cabinet in 1975

Upon assuming office, Ford inherited Nixon's cabinet. Over the course of Ford's relatively brief administration, only Secretary of State Henry Kissinger and Secretary of the Treasury William E. Simon remained. Ford appointed William Coleman as Secretary of Transportation, the second African American to serve in a presidential cabinet (after Robert Clifton Weaver) and the first appointed in a Republican administration.^[3]

Other cabinet-level posts:

• White House Chief of Staff
  • Donald Rumsfeld (1974–1975)
  • Dick Cheney (1975–1977)
• Director of the Office of Management and Budget
  • Roy Ash (1974–1975)
  • James T. Lynn (1975–1977)
• United States Trade Representative
  • William D. Eberle (1974–1975)
  • Frederick B. Dent (1975–1977)
• Administrator of the Environmental Protection Agency
  • Russell E. Train (1974–1977)
• United States Ambassador to the United Nations
  • John A. Scali (1974–1975)
  • Daniel Patrick Moynihan (1975–1976)
  • William Scranton (1976–1977)

Other important posts:

• United States National Security Advisor
  • Henry Kissinger (1974–1975)
  • Brent Scowcroft (1975–1977)
• Director of Central Intelligence
  • William E. Colby (1974–1976)
  • George H. W. Bush (1976–1977)

Ford selected George H.W. Bush to be his liaison to the People's Republic of China in 1974 and then Director of the Central Intelligence Agency in late 1975.^[4]

Ford's transition chairman and first Chief of Staff was former congressman and ambassador Donald Rumsfeld. In 1975, Rumsfeld was named by Ford as the youngest-ever Secretary of Defense. Ford chose a young Wyoming politician, Richard Cheney, to replace Rumsfeld as his new Chief of Staff and later campaign manager for Ford's 1976 presidential campaign.^[5] Ford's dramatic reorganization of his Cabinet in the fall of 1975 has been referred to by political commentators as the "Halloween Massacre."

Nixon pardon

On September 8, 1974, Ford gave Nixon a full and unconditional pardon for any crimes he may have committed against the United States while President.^[6][7] In a televised broadcast to the nation, Ford explained that he felt the pardon was in the best interests of the country and that the Nixon family's situation "is an American tragedy in which we all have played a part. It could go on and on and on, or someone must write the end to it. I have concluded that only I can do that, and if I can, I must."^[8] Concurrently, he announced a Presidential Clemency Board to examine petitioners for "earned re-entry" after leaving the country to resist the Vietnam War. Both deserters and draft dodgers were eligible unless they had taken new citizenship.^[9] Unconditional amnesty was announced during the first week of the Jimmy Carter Presidency, but again, only for those who had not taken new citizenship.^[10]

	Remarks on Clemency for Vietnam Era Draft Evaders Speech announcing clemency program for Vietnam Era draft evaders, September 16, 1974.
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Wikisource has original text related to this article: The Nixon Pardon

The Nixon pardon was highly controversial. Critics derided the move and claimed a "corrupt bargain" had been struck between the men.^[11] They claimed Ford's pardon was quid pro quo in exchange for Nixon's resignation that elevated Ford to the Presidency. Nixon's Chief of Staff, Alexander Haig, did in fact offer a deal to Ford. Bob Woodward, in his book Shadow, recounts that Haig entered Ford's office on August 1, 1974 while Ford was still Vice President and Nixon had yet to resign. Haig told Ford that there were three pardon options: (1) Nixon could pardon himself and resign, (2) Nixon could pardon his aides involved in Watergate and then resign, or (3) Nixon could agree to leave in return for an agreement that the new president would pardon him. After listing these options, Haig handed Ford various papers; one of these papers included a discussion of the president's legal authority to pardon and another sheet was a draft pardon form that only needed Ford's signature and Nixon's name to make it legal. Woodward summarizes the setting between Haig and Ford as follows: "Even if Haig offered no direct words on his views, the message was almost certainly sent. An emotional man, Haig was incapable of concealing his feelings; those who worked closely with him rarely found him ambiguous."

Despite the situation, Ford never accepted the offer from Haig and later decided to pardon Nixon on his own terms. Regardless, historians believe the controversy was one of the major reasons Ford lost the election in 1976, an observation with which Ford concurred.^[12] In an editorial at the time, The New York Times stated that the Nixon pardon was "a profoundly unwise, divisive and unjust act" that in a stroke had destroyed the new president's "credibility as a man of judgment, candor and competence."^[13]

Ford's first press secretary and close friend Jerald Franklin terHorst resigned his post in protest after the announcement of President Nixon's full pardon, contrasting this with no amnesty for persons-of-conscience resisting the Vietnam War. Ford also voluntarily appeared before Congress on October 17, 1974 to give sworn testimony—the only time a sitting president has done so—about the pardon.^[14]

After Ford left the White House in 1977, intimates said the former President privately justified his pardon of Nixon by carrying in his wallet a portion of the text of Burdick v. United States, a 1915 U.S. Supreme Court decision which stated that a pardon indicated a presumption of guilt and that acceptance of a pardon was tantamount to a confession of that guilt.^[12] In 2001, the John F. Kennedy Library Foundation awarded the John F. Kennedy Profile in Courage Award to Ford for his pardon of Nixon.^[15] In presenting the award to Ford, Senator Ted Kennedy said that he was one of those who was strongly opposed to Ford's pardoning of Nixon, but said that history had since showed Ford to have made the correct decision.

Midterm elections

The 1974 Congressional midterm elections took place less than three months after Ford assumed office. Occurring in the wake of the Watergate scandal, the Democratic Party was able to turn voter dissatisfaction into large gains in the House elections, taking 49 seats from the Republican Party, and increasing their majority to 291 of the 435 seats, which was one more than the number needed (290) for a 2/3rds majority, necessary in order to over-ride a Presidential veto (or to submit a Constitutional Amendment). Perhaps due in part to this fact, the 94th Congress overrode the highest percentage of vetoes since Andrew Johnson was President of the United States (1865–1869).^[16] Even Ford's old, reliably Republican seat was taken by Democrat Richard VanderVeen. In the Senate elections, the Democratic majority became 60 in the 100-seat body.^[17]

Domestic policy

Economic troubles

President Gerald Ford addresses the nation on the State of the Union, Jan. 15, 1975.

The economy was a great concern during the Ford administration. It was the worst economic crisis since the Great Depression, and the worst inflation since the collapse of the Confederate dollar.^[18]

In response to rising inflation, which Ford believed was caused by overconsumption,^[19] Ford went before the American public in October 1974 and asked them to "Whip Inflation Now." As part of this program, he urged people to wear "WIN" buttons,^[20] and spend less.^[19]

He urged Americans: "If you can't spare a penny from your food budget, surely you can cut the food you waste by 5 percent."^[19] He then asked Congress to create a 5% tax surcharge for families earning more than $15,000.^[19] Ford also created a Whip Inflation Now committee of 22 citizens, which created a pledge for business owners and consumers to sign in which they agreed not to raise prices through purchases.^[19] In hindsight, urging the wearing of buttons was viewed as simply a public relations gimmick without offering any effective means of solving the underlying problems.^[21] At the time, inflation was approximately 7%.^[22]

The economic focus began to change as the country sank into a mild recession, and in March 1975, Congress passed and Ford signed into law income tax rebates as part of the Tax Reduction Act of 1975 to boost the economy. Ford attempted to convince the Democratic Congress to end Nixon's price controls on domestic oil, which had helped to cause the gasoline lines during the 1973 Oil Crisis,^[23] but Congress would not agree and the controls remained. When New York City faced bankruptcy in 1975, Mayor Abraham Beame was unsuccessful in obtaining Ford's support for a federal bailout. The incident prompted the New York Daily News' notorious headline: "Ford to City: Drop Dead."^[24]

Budget

Ford ran a budget deficit (which he had inherited from his predecessors) every year he was President.^[25] Despite his reservations about how this program ultimately would be funded in an era of tight public budgeting, Ford still signed the Education for All Handicapped Children Act of 1975, which established special education throughout the United States. Ford expressed "strong support for full educational opportunities for our handicapped children" according to the official White House press release for the bill signing.^[26]

H1N1

Ford was confronted with a potential swine flu pandemic. Sometime in the early 1970s, an influenza strain H1N1 shifted from a form of flu that affected primarily pigs and crossed over to humans. On February 5, 1976, an Army recruit at Fort Dix mysteriously died and four fellow soldiers were hospitalized; health officials announced that "swine flu" was the cause. Soon after, public health officials in the Ford administration urged that every person in the United States be vaccinated.^[27] Although the vaccination program was plagued by delays and public relations problems, some 25% of the population was vaccinated by the time the program was canceled. The vaccine was blamed for twenty-five deaths; more people died from the shots than from the swine flu.^[28]

Disabled Americans

Despite his reservations about how this program ultimately would be funded in an era of tight public budgeting, Ford still signed the Education for All Handicapped Children Act of 1975, which established special education throughout the United States. Ford expressed "strong support for full educational opportunities for our handicapped children" according to the official White House press release for the bill signing.^[29]

Women's Liberation

During the Ford Presidency, the First Couple traveled to the states that had not yet ratified the Equal Rights Amendment to lobby for its approval.

Ford was a strong ally of the Women's Movement, in which his wife was an influential activist, and was also an outspoken supporter of the Equal Rights Amendment, which as House Minority Leader he had helped pass the House of Representatives, calling it "an idea whose time had come"^[30]. On Women's Equality Day, 1975, Ford issued Presidential Proclamation 4383.

In this Land of the Free, it is right, and by nature it ought to be, that all men and all women are equal before the law.

Now, THEREFORE, I, GERALD R. FORD, President of the United States of America, to remind all Americans that it is fitting and just to ratify the Equal Rights Amendment adopted by the Congress of the United States of America, in order to secure legal equality for all women and men, do hereby designate and proclaim August 26, 1975, as Women's Equality Day.[1]

The President and First Lady took a very active role in lobbying the state legislatures to ratify the ERA. In addition to his support for women's equality in the Constitution, Ford signed into law several important pieces of feminist legislation, including the monumental Equal Credit Opportunity Act of 1974, the Child Day Care Bill of 1976 (after vetoing the Day Care Services Act earlier that year), and the Women's Educational Equity Act of 1975. On January 1, 1975, Ford signed an Executive Order which allocated government funds to finance a National Commission on International Women's Year, which led to the 1977 National Women's Conference at which Betty Ford was an active participant. Ford used the formation of the Commission on IWY to reaffirm support for the ERA.

The Equal Rights Amendment, which I wholeheartedly endorse, has not yet been ratified by the number of the states necessary to make it a part of our Constitution. Let 1975, International Women's Year, be the year that ERA is ratified. When we discuss women's problem we are talking about people's problems. Women's Liberation is truly the liberation of all people. ^[31]

Unlike his wife, Gerald Ford believed the right to legislate abortion should rest with the states. However, Ford was also pro-choice and supported legalized abortion^[32], something which, he admitted, the far right of the Republican Party attacked him for.

Congress and the CIA

President Ford working at the oval office.

A dominant feature of political life during this period were the attempts of Congress to assert oversight of U.S. Presidency, the executive branch of the U.S. Government. Revelations about past Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) activities, such as assassinations and attempted assassinations of foreign leaders and illegal domestic spying on U.S. citizens (the CIA has no authority to conduct any domestic activities whatsoever), provided the opportunities to execute Congressional oversight of U.S. intelligence operations.^[33] In 1973, then-DCI James R. Schlesinger commissioned reports – known as the "Family Jewels" – on illegal activities by the Agency. In December 1974, Investigative journalist Seymour Hersh broke the news of the "Family Jewels" in a front-page article in The New York Times, revealing that the CIA had assassinated foreign leaders, and had conducted surveillance on some 7,000 American citizens involved in the antiwar movement (Operation CHAOS).^[33] The CIA had also experimented on the public, who unknowingly took LSD.^[33]

Congress responded to the disturbing charges in 1975, investigating the CIA in the Senate via the Church Committee, chaired by Senator Frank Church (D-Idaho), and in the House of Representatives via the Pike Committee, chaired by Congressman Otis Pike (D-NY).^[33] In addition, President Gerald Ford created the Rockefeller Commission,^[33] and issued an executive order prohibiting the assassination of foreign leaders. As the CIA fell out of favor with the public, Ford assured Americans that his administration was not involved: "There are no people presently employed in the White House who have a relationship with the CIA of which I am personally unaware."^[33]

Foreign policy

All American military forces had withdrawn from Vietnam in 1973. As the North Vietnamese invaded and conquered the South in 1975, Ford ordered the final withdrawal of American civilians from Vietnam in 'Operation Frequent Wind', with the subsequent fall of Saigon. On April 29 and the morning of April 30, 1975, the American embassy in Saigon was evacuated amid a chaotic scene. Some 1,373 U.S. citizens and 5,595 Vietnamese and third-country nationals were evacuated by military and Air America helicopters to U.S. Navy ships off-shore.

Ford meets with Soviet Union leader Leonid Brezhnev in Vladivostok, November 1974, to sign a joint communiqué on the SALT treaty

Ford continued the détente policy with both the Soviet Union and the People's Republic of China, easing the tensions of the Cold War.

In his meeting with Indonesian president Suharto, Ford gave the green light^[34][35] through arms and aid to invade the former Portuguese colony East Timor.

Still in place from the Nixon Administration was the Strategic Arms Limitation Treaty.^{[36][verification needed]} The thawing relationship brought about by Nixon's visit to China was reinforced by Ford's December 1975 visit to the communist country.^[37] In 1975, the Administration entered into the Helsinki Accords^[38] with the Soviet Union, creating the framework of the Helsinki Watch, an independent non-governmental organization created to monitor compliance that later evolved into Human Rights Watch.^[39]. The Helsinki accords came to be one of the most significant factors of the fall of communism.

Ford attended the inaugural meeting of the Group of Seven (G7) industrialized nations (initially the G5) in 1975 and secured membership for Canada. Ford supported international solutions to issues. "We live in an interdependent world and, therefore, must work together to resolve common economic problems," he said in a 1974 speech.^[40]

In his Presidential memoir, Ford writes, “No foreign-policy challenges occupied more of my time in the early months of 1975 than the deteriorating situations in both the Middle East and Indochina.” ^[41] In Indochina, Ford faced a foreign policy crisis with the Mayaguez Incident. In May 1975, shortly after the Khmer Rouge took power in Cambodia, Cambodians seized the American merchant ship Mayaguez in international waters. Ford dispatched Marines to rescue the crew, but the Marines landed on the wrong island and met unexpectedly stiff resistance just as, unknown to the U.S., the Mayaguez sailors were being released. In the operation, two military transport helicopters carrying the Marines for the Assault operation were shot down, 41 U.S. servicemen were killed and 50 wounded while approximately 60 Khmer Rouge soldiers were killed.^[42] Ford requested $222 million for foreign aid to Cambodia, which Congress refused to grant.^[43] Ford asked Congress: "Are we to deliberately abandon a small country in the midst of its life-and-death struggle? Is the United States, which so far has stood by its friends throughout the most difficult of times, now to condemn, in effect, a small Asian nation totally dependent upon us?"^[43] Congress also turned down $300 million Ford requested for emergency aid to South Vietnam.^[43]

Ford meeting with Secretary of State Henry Kissinger.

Ford meeting with Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld (left) and chief of staff Dick Cheney (right) in 1975.

In the Middle East and eastern Mediterranean, two ongoing international disputes developed into crises. The ongoing Cyprus dispute turned into a crisis with the Turkish invasion of Cyprus, causing extreme strain within the NATO alliance. In mid-August, the U.S.-supported military junta of Greece withdrew Greece from the NATO military structure; in mid-September 1974 the Senate and House of Representatives overwhelmingly voted to halt military aid to Turkey. Ford, concerned with both the effect of this on Turkish-American relations and the deterioration of security on NATO’s eastern front, vetoed the bill. A second bill was passed by the house, and also vetoed, although a compromise was accepted to continue aid until the end of the year. ^[44] As Ford expected, Turkish relations were considerably disrupted until 1980.

In the continuing Arab-Israeli conflict, although the initial cease fire had been implemented to end active conflict in the Yom Kippur War, Kissinger’s continuing shuttle diplomacy was showing little progress. Ford considered it “stalling” and wrote, “Their [Israeli] tactics frustrated the Egyptians and made me mad as hell.’^[45] During Kissinger’s shuttle to Israel in early March 1975, a last minute reversal to consider further withdrawal, prompted a cable from Ford to Prime Minister Yitzak Rabin, which included;

I wish to express my profound disappointment over Israel’s attitude in the course of the negotiations… Failure of the negotiation will have a far reaching impact on the region and on our relations. I have given instructions for a reassessment of United States policy in the region, including our relations with Israel, with the aim of ensuring that overall American interests… are protected. You will be notified of our decision^[46]

On March 24, Ford received congressional leaders of both parties and informed them of the reassessment of the administration policies in the Middle East. There was only one way a “reassessment” could have a practical meaning: to cancel or suspend further aid to Israel. And this indeed was what happened. For six months between March and September 1975 the United States refused to conclude any new arms agreements with Israel. Rabin notes it was ”an innocent-sounding term that heralded one of the worst periods in American-Israeli relations.”^[47] As could be expected, the announced reassessments upset the American Jewish community and Israel’s well-wishers in Congress. On May 21, Ford “experienced a real shock,” seventy six senators wrote him a letter urging him to be “responsive” to Israel’s request for $2.59 billion in military and economic aid. Ford felt truly annoyed and thought the chance for peace was jeopardized. It was, since the September 1974 ban on arms to Turkey, the second major congressional intrusion upon the President’s [foreign policy] prerogatives.^[48] The following summer months were described by Ford as an American-Israeli “war of nerves” or ”test of wills,”^[49] and after much bargaining, the Sinai Interim Agreement (Sinai II), was formerly signed on September 1 and aid resumed.

Assassination attempts

Reaction immediately after the second assassination attempt.

Ford faced two assassination attempts during his presidency, occurring within three weeks of each other: while in Sacramento, California on September 5, 1975, Lynette "Squeaky" Fromme, a follower of Charles Manson, pointed a Colt 45-caliber handgun at Ford. As Fromme pulled the trigger, Larry Buendorf^[50], a Secret Service agent, grabbed the gun and managed to insert the webbing of his thumb under the hammer, preventing the gun from firing. It was later found that, although the gun was loaded with four bullets, it was a semi-automatic pistol and the slide had not been pulled to place a bullet in the firing chamber, making it impossible for the gun to fire. Fromme was taken into custody; she was later convicted of attempted assassination of the President and was sentenced to life in prison.^[51] After serving 34 years in custody, she was released from prison on 14 August 2009.

Seventeen days later, another woman, Sara Jane Moore, also tried to kill Ford while he was visiting San Francisco, but her attempt was thwarted when former Marine Oliver Sipple deflected her shot. One person was injured when Moore fired. Moore was later sentenced to life in prison.^[52][53] She was released in 2007 with at least five years parole.

Judicial appointments

Supreme Court

In 1975, Ford appointed John Paul Stevens as Associate Justice of the Supreme Court of the United States to replace retiring Justice William O. Douglas. Stevens had been a judge of the United States Court of Appeals for the Seventh Circuit, appointed by President Nixon.^[54] During his tenure as House Republican leader, Ford had led efforts to have Douglas impeached. After being confirmed, Stevens eventually disappointed some conservatives by siding with the Court's liberal wing regarding the outcome of many key issues.^[55] Nevertheless, President Ford paid tribute to Stevens. "He has served his nation well," Ford said of Stevens, "with dignity, intellect and without partisan political concerns."^[56]

Other courts

In addition to his Supreme Court appointment, Ford was able to appoint a modest 11 judges to the United States Courts of Appeals, and 50 judges to the United States district courts. Ford also had several judicial appointment controversies, having made two nominations to federal appellate judgeships, and eight to United States district courts, which were not processed by the Democratic-controlled Senate Judiciary Committee before Ford's presidency ended.

1976 presidential election

Ford reluctantly agreed to run for office in 1976, but first he had to counter a challenge for the Republican party nomination. Then-former Governor of California Ronald Reagan and the party's conservative wing faulted Ford for failing to do more in South Vietnam, for signing the Helsinki Accords and for negotiating to cede the Panama Canal (negotiations for the canal continued under President Carter, who eventually signed the Torrijos-Carter Treaties). Reagan launched his campaign in autumn of 1975 and won several primaries before withdrawing from the race at the Republican Convention in Kansas City, Missouri. The conservative insurgency convinced Ford to drop the more liberal Vice President Nelson Rockefeller in favor of Kansas Senator Bob Dole.^[57]

In addition to the pardon dispute and lingering anti-Republican sentiment, Ford had to counter a plethora of negative media imagery. Chevy Chase often did pratfalls on Saturday Night Live, imitating Ford, who had been seen stumbling on two occasions during his term. As Chase commented, "He even mentioned in his own autobiography it had an effect over a period of time that affected the election to some degree."^[58]

President Ford's 1976 election campaign had the advantage that he was an incumbent President during several anniversary events held during the period leading up to the United States Bicentennial. The Washington, D.C. fireworks display on the Fourth of July was presided over by the President and televised nationally.^[59] On July 7, 1976, the President and First Lady served as hosts at a White House state dinner for Queen Elizabeth II and Prince Philip of the United Kingdom, which was televised on the Public Broadcasting Service network. The 200th anniversary of the Battles of Lexington and Concord in Massachusetts gave Ford the opportunity to deliver a speech to 110,000 in Concord acknowledging the need for a strong national defense tempered with a plea for "reconciliation, not recrimination" and "reconstruction, not rancor" between the United States and those who would pose "threats to peace".^[60] Speaking in New Hampshire on the previous day, Ford condemned the growing trend toward big government bureaucracy and argued for a return to "basic American virtues".^[61]

Ford (at right) and Jimmy Carter debate

Democratic nominee and former Georgia governor Jimmy Carter campaigned as an outsider and reformer, gaining support from voters dismayed by the Watergate scandal and Nixon pardon. After the Democratic National Convention, he held a huge 33-point lead over Ford in the polls. However, as the campaign continued, the race tightened, and, by election day, the polls showed the race as too close to call. There were three main events in the fall campaign. Most importantly, Carter repeated a promise of a "blanket pardon" for Christian and other religious refugees and other opponents of the Vietnam War draft dodgers (Ford had only issued a conditional amnesty) in response to a question on the subject posed by a reporter during the presidential debates, an act which froze Ford's poll numbers in Ohio, Wisconsin, Hawaii, and Mississippi. (Ford had needed only to shift 11,000 votes in two of those four states in order to win.) Americans viewed the pardon as an essential moral act and as the true end to a bitterly hated war. It was the first act signed by Carter, on January 20, 1977. Earlier, Playboy magazine had published a controversial interview with Carter; in the interview Carter admitted to having "lusted in his heart" for women other than his wife, which cut into his support among women and evangelical Christians. Also, on September 24, Ford performed well in what was the first televised presidential debate since 1960. Polls taken after the debate showed that most viewers felt that Ford was the winner. Carter was also hurt by Ford's charges that he lacked the necessary experience to be an effective national leader, and that Carter was vague on many issues.

Presidential debates were reintroduced for the first time since the 1960 election. While Ford was seen as the winner of the first debate, during the second debate he startlingly blundered when he stated, "There is no Soviet domination of Eastern Europe and there never will be under a Ford Administration." Ford also said that he did not "believe that the Poles consider themselves dominated by the Soviet Union".^[62] In an interview years later, Ford said he had intended to imply that the Soviets would never crush the spirits of eastern Europeans seeking independence. However, the phrasing was so awkward that questioner Max Frankel was visibly incredulous at the response.^[63] As a result of this blunder, and Carter's promise of a full presidential pardon for political refugees from the Vietnam era during the presidential debates, Ford's surge stalled and Carter was able to maintain a slight lead in the polls.

In the end, Carter won the election, receiving 50.1% of the popular vote and 297 electoral votes compared with 48.0% and 240 electoral votes for Ford. The election was close enough that had fewer than 25,000 votes shifted in Ohio and Wisconsin – both of which neighbored his home state – Ford would have won the electoral vote.^[64] Though he lost, in the three months between the Republican National Convention and the election Ford managed to close what was once a 34-point Carter lead to a 2-point margin. In fact, the Gallup poll the day before the election showed Ford held a statistically insignificant 1-point advantage over Carter.^[65]

Had Ford won the election, he would have been disqualified by the 22nd Amendment from running in 1980, since he served more than two years of Nixon's term.

References

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