Scott Kaufman - Ambition, pragmatism, and party : a political biography of Gerald R. Ford

Scott Kaufman

UNIVERSITY PRESS OF KANSAS

2017 by the University Press of Kansas

All rights reserved

Published by the University Press of Kansas (Lawrence, Kansas
66045), which was organized by the Kansas Board of Regents and
is operated and funded by Emporia State
University, Fort Hays State University, Kansas State University, Pittsburg State University, the
University of Kansas, and Wichita State University

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

Names: Kaufman, Scott, 1969 author.

Title: Ambition, pragmatism, and party : a political biography of
Gerald R. Ford / Scott Kaufman.

Description: Lawrence, Kansas : University Press of Kansas, 2017. |
Includes bibliographical references and index.

Identifiers: LCCN 2017038277

ISBN 9780700625000 (cloth : alk. paper)

ISBN 9780700625017 (ebook)

Subjects: LCSH: Ford, Gerald R., 19132006. | Presidents
United StatesBiography. | United StatesPolitics and
government1945-1989. | United StatesPolitics and
government19741977.

Classification: LCC E866 .K38 2017 | DDC 973.925092[B]dc23
LC record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2017038277.

British Library Cataloguing-in-Publication Data is available.

Printed in the United States of America

10987654321

The paper used in this publication is recycled and contains 30
percent postconsumer waste. It is acid free and meets the minimum
requirements of the American National Standard for Permanence of
Paper for Printed Library Materials Z39.48-1992.

Contents

Illustrations

Preface

On 9 August 1974, President Richard Nixon, facing impeachment because of his part in the Watergate scandal, resigned, becoming the first and only chief executive in American history to do so. That same day, his vice president, Gerald Ford, became the countrys new leader. What made the events of that day even more remarkable was that eight months earlier, Ford was the minority leader of the House of Representatives, where he represented Michigans Fifth District. He had become vice president only because the incumbent, Spiro Agnew, had also been forced to resign. Now, in August, Ford entered the White House as the countrys only unelected president.

Maybe it is because of the unprecedented way in which he became president that the overwhelming majority of the scholarship on Gerald Ford has focused on his tenure in the Oval Office rather than on his whole life. Indeed, only three works have made an attempt at a comprehensive political biography of Americas thirty-eighth president. The first was brothers Edward Schapsmeier and Frederick Schapsmeiers Gerald R. Fords Date with Destiny, but its disjointed, jumpy nature and publication nearly twenty years before Fords death make it wanting. Far more readable is Douglas Brinkleys Gerald R. Ford, which covers the entirety of Fords life. However, it is part of a series designed to offer short histories of each president, thus restricting the depth of coverage. The last, and most recent, is James Cannons laudatory Gerald R. Ford, but the author passed away before he completed it, and the portions of the book on Fords presidency read more as his memoir than as a scholarly monograph.

It is possible that the dearth of biographies is due to the fact that, despite a twenty-five-year career in Congress, Ford never sponsored a major piece of legislation, and he failed to achieve his dream of becoming speaker of the House. Perhaps it is because, though he was intelligent, he was not an intellectual on a par with James Madison, John Quincy Adams, Theodore Roosevelt, or Woodrow Wilson. He was not a visionary like Thomas Jefferson or Franklin Roosevelt; indeed, he had a difficult time seeing beyond specific policy proposals and placing them within a broader plan for the country. He did not have the complex personality of Lyndon B. Johnson or Richard Nixon. He was not the center of a major scandal. He was not a member of a famous family. He did not lead the country during a war. Or maybe it originates from the thesis that Ford was a caretaker president, one whose only decision of significance was to pardon Nixon and who otherwise kept the chair in the Oval Office warm pending the outcome of the 1976 presidential election.

If any of these explanations are correct, they are unfair, for they give short shrift to an individual who not only sat in the Oval Office, but whose life experiences and career in and out of Washington covered almost the entire twentieth century. Born in 1913, he was raised by an abused mother who found happiness following a contentious divorce and a stepfather who treated his stepson as his own. His parents suffered through the Depression, which nearly forced his stepfather to close his business. He fought in World War II and joined Congress shortly after the Cold War began. During his tenure in the House of Representatives, he participated in numerous debates both inside and outside of Congress regarding containment policy, the Korean War, the Vietnam War, and the emergence of dtente with the Communist world. Likewise, he spoke repeatedly on the extent to which the government should involve itself at home on matters ranging from civil rights to the environment, the economy, and welfare policy. Moreover, he witnessed a Republican Party that increasingly was at war with itself as the GOPs right wing emerged as a force with which to be reckoned.

Though short, Fords 895-day presidency was marked by more than the Nixon pardon. He oversaw the withdrawal of the remaining U.S. presence in South Vietnam. He had to address crises involving the Cambodian seizure of the American ship Mayaguez, Americans use of energy, and New York Citys finances. He sought as well to continue dtente with the Soviet Union and tried to figure out how to help the economy emerge from stagflation. Repeatedly, he found himself pulled not only by conservatives in his own partywho challenged him for the Republican nomination for the presidency in 1976but an increasingly assertive, Democratic-controlled Congress. After leaving the White House, he remained active within Republican politics. But he also began to move more to the political left on social issues, and he developed a close relationship with another former president, Jimmy Carter. Additionally, he used his title of ex-president to make a significant sum of money.

During Fords ninety-three-year life, three themes emerged. The first was his ambition. Through hard work, he became an Eagle Scout and the captain of his high school football team, endeavored to become an attorney, and clawed his way into Yale Law School. He broke up with his first girlfriend so he could practice law in Michigan. During World War II, he served with the U.S. Navy, used his connections to rise up the chain of command on the aircraft carrier on which he served, and left the service with the rank of lieutenant commander. Not long after joining Congress, he decided he wanted to become speaker of the House and allied himself with a group of younger lawmakers, the Young Turks, who helped him eventually rise to the position of minority leader. In that post, he sought to convince others to endorse a variety of initiatives he believed would be best for his party and the nation. Instead of becoming speaker, he ended up serving as president of the United States, during which time he cajoled those who opposed him to see the wisdom of the positions he adopted. After losing the 1976 election, he toyed with running again in 1980, but, forgoing that option, he instead became a well-paid member of numerous corporate boards. His desire to assume positions of authority took its toll on Fords family. He was an absent husband and father, which was difficult for his four children, but it was his wife, Betty, who took Jerrys absenteeism the hardest. She never considered divorcing her husband, but the time he was away made her feel ever more alone. She became addicted to alcohol, which she combined with painkillers she took for a bad back. Yet she refused to permit her suffering to stand in the way of his dreams. Indeed, in many ways she was as determined as he, taking positions as first lady that were out of accord with those of Republican conservatives. She hoped that once she and Jerry left the White House, they would have more time together, but he continued to spend time away. It took a family intervention to help her give up her addictions, and she became a leader in the fight against alcohol and drug abuse.