Gerald R. Ford
Herbert S. Parmet
AT noon on 9 August 1974, the day on which President Nixon resigned, everyone in the East Room of the White House rose as Chief Justice Warren Burger entered. Then came Vice President and Mrs. Gerald Ford. She held the Bible, opened to the Book of Proverbs, as Ford placed his right hand on it and was sworn in as the thirty-eighth president of the United States. He told the audience that "our long national nightmare is over. Our Constitution works. Our great Republic is a Government of laws and not of men." Then he urged, "Let us restore the golden rule to our political process, and let brotherly love purge our hearts of suspicion and of hate." Three days later, the new president addressed a joint session of the Congress and said, I do not want a honeymoon with you. I want a good marriage." He stressed opposition to "unwarranted cuts in national defense" and gave the control of inflation as his first priority. His foreign policy would be a continuation of Nixon's: working toward a cease-fire in Vietnam and a negotiated settlement in Laos, détente with the Soviet Union, and continuation of the "new relationship" with the People's Republic of China. Addressing himself directly to the ethics of government, he promised no "illegal tapings, eavesdropping, buggings, or break-ins by my Administration."
Ford was the first president of the United States to reach the White House by way of the Twenty-fifth Amendment. He thereby became more a designated, rather than an "accidental," president. Even at the moment of his nomination, mounting revelations about the Watergate scandal had made his ultimate rise to the presidency a distinct possibility. In naming him to replace Spiro Agnew, Nixon had little choice other than to heed the advice of the Democratic leadership that the former House minority leader was the only Republican they would agree to confirm. Ford was simply not viewed as a potent candidate for the presidential nomination in 1976. His elevation made him, in effect, the first congressional president. Contrary to the expectations of its sponsors, the Twenty-fifth Amendment created a presidency that considerably reduced the distance between Capitol Hill and the White House. Ford had not been in office very long before the amendment's implications became obvious. A Ford speechwriter, Robert Hartmann, later wrote that Congress "will never knowingly select the strongest possible Presidential prospect as their opposition. They will pick, at best, someone they see as a competent caretaker until the next election." Ron Nessen, Ford's second press secretary, observed that no other president was routinely described as " 'acting presidential' instead of simply being president." Ford never fully recovered from that burden.