Gerald R. Ford, Jr.

38th U.S. President
1913-2006

"Team Player"

Anytime an American President passes away, it’s an historic event. The usual historians hit the airwaves and drag out their tales of yore, and such is the case with the death of Gerald Ford. Flags have been lowered and he will receive a hero’s funeral. He was our only unelected President, having been elevated to the Office following Nixon’s resignation in August of ’74 until he was defeated in the ’76 Presidential election. He had been appointed as Nixon’s Vice President a year earlier after Agnew was caught in a scandal and resigned.

In all respects, Ford was a consummate "team player", dating all the way back to his All-American days at Michigan in the ‘30’s. In football he wasn’t a star quarterback or a halfback, but a down and dirty offensive lineman, a team guy. Likewise, he was a team guy in Congress, and as President. The experience of sitting on the minority side of the aisle all those years enabled him to build and maintain effective relations with just about everyone in Congress and the Senate. He was a "player", but more so in the team context than as the word is used today.

All Presidents whether good, mediocre or bad have a place in the story of America. Ford stepped into the breach during a very troubled time and helped to heal a great deal of the divisiveness that had fomented as a result of Vietnam and Watergate. He pardoned Nixon, which sealed his fate politically, but given the tenor of the times, the humble way in which he carried himself as President is worth noting. He did not find any public/team benefit in allowing the Watergate fiasco to drag out any longer, so he did what he felt was necessary and kept moving.
He was not called upon to be a national savior, as was the case with Washington, Lincoln or FDR. In many ways his Presidency is comparable to Harry S Truman’s; the guy who’s called upon to mop up after a crisis. Suffice to say, the Mint won’t be using his image and likeness for currency. He’d probably be embarrassed if they tried. His calling was to be a diffuser. As President, he was famous for pratfalls and hitting spectators with errant golf balls and on two separate occasions he narrowly escaped assassination attempts. In retirement, he slowly faded from the spotlight into the Aspen/Palm Springs world and was rarely seen or heard from.

If that’s all there was to the story, it’d probably get a day or so’s worth of play before fading with the New Year. But as with every notable personage, there’s far more than meets the eye. Gerald Ford also had a prominent role as an appointee to the so-called "Warren Commission" following John Kennedy’s murder in 1963. He was the last Commission member to die. Having been a Yale Law grad, WWII Naval Officer and Member of Congress since ’48, his bona fides had long since been established in Washington. However, his legacy on the Commission will be remembered as being "The FBI’s Man" and for deliberately distorting the location of a wound to Kennedy in order to buttress the so-called "Single Bullet Theory." (A fact that was not discovered until researchers discovered his handiwork when additional public records regarding the assassination in 1997).

The JFK Assassination is probably the most researched event in American History. The ramifications of his death are still being felt today. Far from being a matter consigned to "history buffs", trying to find a coherent answer to who killed Kennedy and why remains as contentious and vibrant as ever. Lyndon Johnson put together an august "team" who mission it was to "find the facts" and report to the American People. To be charitable in this Holiday season, the Report was an Alice-in-Wonderlandesque mosaic where the facts were made to fit the preordained conclusion. Maybe "the Team" thought they were "doing the right thing for the country" by rushing to publish their conclusions within a year and moving on. Far from settling the matter, the "official story" spawned an assassination theory industry. Despite having been confronted with the controversial findings, Ford never wavered from the conclusive certainty of the Commission’s findings. History will be the judge of that, what’s done is done. Many people cannot respect Ford as President due to his participation on the Warren Commission and his pardon of Nixon, but his public life was as a team player, a role larger than two seminal events.
Ford became President because he was trusted to be a team player at a time when America needed a cool head. People tend to forget the degree of vitriol that existed in the mid-70’s, and President Ford stepped into the fray and carried out his constitutional duties with quiet humility and dignity. His presidency was much like the calm after the storm. In the process, America became less divisive culturally and politically more bipartisan. Although Vietnam fell to the Communists less than a year after he assumed office, the war was not part of his legacy. Other than the documented evidence compiled as part of his work on the Warren Commission, there was nothing contentious regarding his public life. If anything, his Presidency was the antithesis of "The Imperial Presidency" of his predecessor.

As is the case with the career of Chief Justice Warren, it is time to consider the full weight of Gerald Ford’s public service and conclude that he put the interests of the team above his own. Because his public service is so intricately interwoven with Kennedy-Nixon, he does not stand out among the more notable American Presidents. Team players rarely do. His calling was not to lead the nation at a time of great peril from without, but at a time of internal strife. He did his very best to heal the wounds of a divided nation. And that, fellow Americans, is how he ought to be remembered. Rest in peace, Mr. President.