John Robert Greene - Betty Ford: Candor and Courage in the White House

MODERN FIRST LADIES

Lewis L. Gould, Editor

TITLES IN THE SERIES

Helen Taft: Our Musical First Lady, Lewis L. Gould

Ellen and Edith: Woodrow Wilsons First Ladies, Kristie Miller

First Lady Florence Harding: Behind the Tragedy and Controversy, Katherine A. S. Sibley

Grace Coolidge: The Peoples Lady in Silent Cals White House, Robert H. Ferrell

Lou Henry Hoover: Activist First Lady, Nancy Beck Young

Eleanor Roosevelt: Transformative First Lady, Maurine Beasley

Bess Wallace Truman: Traditional First Lady, Sara L. Sale

Mamie Doud Eisenhower: The Generals First Lady, Marilyn Irvin Holt

Jacqueline Kennedy: First Lady of the New Frontier, Barbara A. Perry

Lady Bird Johnson: Our Environmental First Lady, Lewis L. Gould

Betty Ford: Candor and Courage in the White House, John Robert Greene

Rosalynn Carter: Equal Partner in the White House, Scott Kaufman

Nancy Reagan: On the White House Stage, James G. Benze, Jr.

Barbara Bush: Presidential Matriarch, Myra G. Gutin

Hillary Rodham Clinton: Polarizing First Lady, Gil Troy

CANDOR AND COURAGE IN

THE WHITE HOUSE

JOHN ROBERT GREENE

UNIVERSITY PRESS OF KANSAS

2004 by the University Press of Kansas

All rights reserved

Published by the University Press of Kansas
(Lawrence, Kansas 66049), 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
Greene, John Robert, 1955
Betty Ford : candor and courage in the White
House / John Robert Greene.
p. cm. (Modern first ladies)
Includes bibliographical references and index.
ISBN 978-0-7006-1354-0 (cloth : alk. paper)
ISBN 978-0-7006-2865-0 (ebook)
1. Ford, Betty, 1918 2. Presidents spouses
United StatesBiography. I. Title. II. Series.

E 867. F 67 G 74 2004

973.925'092dc222004013586

British Library Cataloguing-in-Publication Data
is available.

Printed in the United States of America

10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1

The paper used in the print publication meets the
minimum requirements of the American National
Standard for Permanence of Paper for Printed
Library Materials Z39.48-1984.

For Patty, T. J., Christopher, and Mary Rose

Books are the children of the brain.

Jonathan Swift

and Jenny Madeleine Elisabeth Reimann (19532004)

Candor and Courage in our Family

Come trip it lightly, as you go on the light fantastic toe.
Quote accompanying the senior class photo of Betty Bloomer, Central High (Grand Rapids) Yearbook, 1936.

Somehow we [women] always feel we must be there... And all the while paining . Women call it being a woman. And by golly, Im sure that describes the noble woman, Betty Ford.
Pearl Bailey

During her husbands brief presidency, Betty Ford became celebrated for her outspoken views on abortion and the Equal Rights Amendment, her courage when facing breast cancer, and her sense of fun in the White House. Revelations about her battle with prescription drugs and alcohol, culminating in a family intervention and eventually the creation of the Betty Ford Center, made her even more of a national figure after her husbands presidency ended. She exemplified determination in the face of human trials and an irrepressible sense of courage in her public appearances. Her fame did not recede in the years when she was no longer first lady. If anything, her status as a role model for people with addictions and personal pain became more pronounced.

The roots of Betty Fords problems and triumphs lay in her childhood in Grand Rapids, Michigan. In the first study to trace the origins of her demons and the ways she battled them during her husbands career, John Robert Greene has combined fresh research with his wide knowledge of the Ford era to produce a book that illuminates how Betty Ford became the woman that Americans have admired. Greene shows that alcoholism in Betty Fords family was a pervasive problem, and he examines how she interacted with her addiction when her husband was in the House of Representatives, vice president, and then president from 1974 to 1977. Despite these unresolved emotional and medical issues, in the White House, Mrs. Ford managed to be a free spirit. Greene surveys her struggle with breast cancer, her advocacy of the Equal Rights Amendment, and her role in the 1976 election campaign with skill and insight. His capacity to maintain his balance in discussing both the positive and negative aspects of Betty Fords performance in the White House makes this volume a notable contribution to the Modern First Ladies series. It also shows why a generation of Americans found in Betty Ford such an attractive and human woman during a difficult time for the nation. The pressures of being the first lady in the unrelenting media spotlight almost consumed Betty Ford, but she maintained her indomitable sense of self. In the end, she overcame her challenges and found a healthy place in society. In this engaging and fascinating book, John Robert Greene shows why her story says so much about an independent first lady and her lasting impact on an important American institution.

In all polls, whether conducted by an academic or for the general public, Betty Bloomer Warren Ford is consistently rated as one of the top ten most successful and respected first ladies in American history. She is universally lauded for her courage and candor, as observers point to her fights against three diseasessubstance abuse, arthritis, and breast cancer. She is remembered in popular literature and popular magazine retrospectives for her public battles against these demons. Indeed, in a poll conducted by the television network VH1 in 2003 to identify The 200 Greatest Pop Culture Icons, Betty came in 166thonly one place better than the Three Stooges.

Clearly, Americans have reacted to Betty Ford, rather than evaluated her. She is included in the usual encyclopedias and readers on the first ladies, and along with the story of her lifelong battle for her health, she is given credit for taking a public stand in favor of the Equal Rights Amendment, speaking candidly regarding her relationship with her children on Minutes, and for being the most outspoken first lady since Eleanor Roosevelt. Some observers go so far as to call her an active political partner of the president and suggest that she had a role in driving the policy agenda of the Ford White House. However, there has been little analysis beyond these claims. No scholarly biography of Betty Ford has been published that makes use of the vast amount of available archival and manuscript material; nor has a detailed study of her important and influential tenure as first lady been offered. The success or failure of her advocacy, as well as the impact of her twenty-nine-month tenure as first lady, have not been fully evaluated.

Until recently, the same was true of her husband. Choosing to like the affable Gerald Ford rather than think about him, scholars had essentially taken a pass on a detailed analysis of his presidency. In 1995 I fired the opening salvo in a scholarly analysis of Gerald Ford; it is, perhaps, fitting that I now take a shot at a scholarly analysis of Betty Ford. In so doing, one of the limitations of my book on Gerald Ford has became embarrassingly evident. As I began to detail for myself the impact of Betty Ford as first lady, I realized not just how much of an impact she had on the Ford Administrationindeed, I concluded that she succeeded in areas where her husband had tried and failed, and she developed into much more than had been expected of a traditional first ladybut that I had seriously downplayed that impact in my work on the Ford Administration. Although I like to think that this revelation shows some growth on my part as a historian, the reality is that historians have yet to adequately analyze and discuss the role of the first lady in American political history. I am certain that the series of which this book is a part will go a long way toward addressing that gap; I hope that this book will be a step toward addressing this in terms of Betty Ford.