Road to the Presidency: Gerald Ford
Gerald Ford was born Leslie Lynch King Jr. His mother, Dorothy Ayer Gardner, separated from Ford's father, leslie Lynch King Sr., just sixteen days after Ford's birth, fleeing from an abusive marriage. Dorothy Gardner and King Sr. divorced in December 1913 and Ford's mother gained full custody of her son. On February 1, 1916, Dorothy Gardner married Gerald Rudolff Ford, and they called the child Gerald Rudolff Ford Jr., although the future president was never formally adopted. Ford did not legally change his name until December 3, 1935 and used a more conventional spelling of his middle name. He grew up in Grand Rapids, Michigan.

As a boy, Ford was active in the Boy Scouts of America, and earned that program's highest rank, Eagle Scout. He is the only Eagle Scout to have become President of the United States. He attended Grand Rapids South High School where he was a star athlete and captain of the football team. In 1930, he was selected to the All-City team of the Grand Rapids City League and was sought after by college recruiters.
Ford attended the University of Michigan where he played center and linebacker for the school's football team, the Wolverines. The team that Ford was on had undefeated seasons and national titles in 1932 and 1933, but in his 1934 senior year, the team only won one game. During Ford's senior year, in a game against the Georgia Tech Yellow Jackets, the Yellow Jackets refused to play a scheduled game if an African-American player for Michigan named Willis Ward took the field. Despite protests from students, players and alumni, university officials opted to keep Ward out of the game. Ford was a good friend of Ward and they roomed together while on road trips. Ford reportedly threatened to quit the team in response to the university’s decision, but eventually agreed to play against Georgia Tech at Ward's request.
Ford graduated in 1935 with a Bachelor of Arts degree in economics. He turned down contract offers to play for the Detroit Lions and Green Bay Packers of the National Football League, and also turned down an offer of a coaching position at Yale. Instead he applied to the Yale law school, although he accepted an assistant coaching job for football and boxing at Yale in September 1935.
Ford spent the summer of 1937 as a student at the University of Michigan Law School and was eventually admitted to Yale Law School in the spring of 1938. He earned his LL.B. degree in 1941, graduating in the top 25 percent of his class. In the summer of 1940 Ford worked in Wendell Willkie's presidential campaign. Ford graduated from law school in 1941, and was admitted to the Michigan bar shortly thereafter.
In May 1941, Ford opened a law practice with a friend, Philip W. Buchen in Grand Rapids. Buchen would later serve as Ford's White House counsel. But when the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor took place, Ford enlisted in the Navy. He received a commission as ensign in the U.S. Naval Reserve on April 13, 1942 and a week later, on April 20, he reported for active duty to the V-5 instructor school at Annapolis, Maryland. After one month of training, he went to Navy Pre-flight School in Chapel Hill, North Carolina, where he was one of 83 instructors. He taught elementary navigation skills, ordnance, gunnery, first aid and military drill. He also coached all nine sports that were offered there. While at the Pre-flight School, he was promoted to Lieutenant Junior Grade on June 2, 1942, and to Lieutenant in March 1943.
In May of 1943 Ford was sent to the new aircraft carrier USS Monterey at Camden, New Jersey. The ship was commissioned on June 17, 1943, and Ford served on board as the assistant navigator until the end of December 1944. While he was on board, the carrier participated in many actions in the Pacific Theater with the Third and Fifth Fleets in late 1943 and 1944. In 1943, the carrier helped secure Makin Island and during the spring of 1944, the Monterey supported landings at Kwajalein and Eniwetok and participated in carrier strikes in the Marianas, Western Carolines, and northern New Guinea, as well as in the Battle of the Philippine Sea. From September to November 1944, aircraft from the Monterey launched strikes against Wake Island, participated in strikes in the Philippines and supported the landings at Leyte and Mindoro.
The Monterey was one of several ships damaged by the typhoon that hit the Third Fleet on December 18 and 19, 1944. The Third Fleet lost three destroyers and over 800 men during the typhoon. The Monterey was damaged by a fire, which was started by several of the ship's aircraft tearing loose from their cables and colliding on the hangar deck. Ford narrowly avoided becoming a casualty himself. As he was going to his battle station on the bridge of the ship in the early morning of December 18, the ship rolled twenty-five degrees, which caused Ford to lose his footing and slide toward the edge of the deck. The two-inch steel ridge around the edge of the carrier saved him from going overboard. After the fire the Monterey was declared unfit for servic. On December 24, 1944, Ford was sent to the Navy Pre-Flight School at Saint Mary's College of California, where he was assigned until the end of the war. He remained in the Navy until on June 28, 1946.
On October 15, 1948, Ford married the former Elizabeth (Betty) Bloomer Warren at Grace Episcopal Church in Grand Rapids. She was a department store fashion consultant, who had been a fashion model and a dancer in the Martha Graham Dance Company. She had previously been married to and divorced from William G. Warren.
At the time of his engagement, Ford was campaigning for what would be his first of thirteen terms as a member of the United States House of Representatives. The wedding was delayed until shortly before the elections because Ford wasn't sure how voters might feel about his marrying a divorced ex-dancer.
After returning to Grand Rapids, Ford became active in local Republican politics. He ran for the party's nomination for the congressional seat held by incumbent Republican Bartel J. Jonkman. He was successful and
was a member of the House of Representatives for 25 years, holding the Grand Rapids congressional district seat from 1949 to 1973. Remarkably, he did not write a single piece of major legislation in his entire career. He was appointed to the House Appropriations Committee two years after being elected, and was a member of the Defense Appropriations Subcommittee. In the early 1950s, Ford was asked, but declined to run for the Senate and for the Michigan governorship.
In November 1963, President Lyndon B. Johnson appointed Ford to the Warren Commission, a task force set up to investigate the assassination of President John F. Kennedy. Ford was assigned to prepare a biography of Lee Harvey Oswald, the accused assassin. Ford later said that the CIA had destroyed or kept from investigators critical secrets connected to the 1963 assassination of President John F. Kennedy. According to a 1963 FBI memo released in 2008, Ford secretly provided the FBI with information about two of his fellow commission members, both of whom were not content with the FBI's conclusions about the assassination. The FBI position was that President Kennedy was shot by a single gunman firing from the Texas Book Depository. Another 1963 memo released in 1978 stated that Ford volunteered to advise the FBI regarding the content of the commission's deliberations if his involvement with the bureau was kept confidential, a condition which the bureau approved. Ford was an outspoken proponent of the single-assassin theory.
In 1964, Democratic President Lyndon Johnson led a landslide victory for his party, securing another term as president and taking 36 seats from Republicans in the House of Representatives. Following the election, members of the Republican caucus selected Ford as their new Minority Leader. The Republicans had 140 seats in the House compared with the 295 seats held by the Democrats. The Johnson Administration proposed and passed a series of programs that was called by Johnson the "Great Society." Criticism over the Johnson Administration's handling of the Vietnam War began to grow in 1966, with Ford and Congressional Republicans expressing concern that the United States was not doing what was necessary to win the war. Public sentiment also began to move against Johnson, and the 1966 midterm elections saw the Republicans gain 47 seats. This was not enough to give Republicans a majority in the House, but the victory gave Ford considerably more influence.
Ford's critized the government's handling of the Vietnam War in a speech he gave on the floor of the House, in which he questioned whether the White House had a clear plan to bring the war to a successful conclusion.In response, President Johnson accused Ford of playing "too much football without a helmet". Johnson said "Jerry Ford is so dumb he can't fart and chew gum at the same time."
When Richard Nixon was elected President in 1968, Ford's role shifted to being an advocate for the White House agenda. Congress passed several of Nixon's proposals, including the National Environmental Policy Act and the Tax Reform Act of 1969.
On October 10, 1973, Vice President Spiro Agnew resigned and then pleaded no contest to criminal charges of tax evasion and money laundering, part of a negotiated resolution to a scheme in which he accepted $29,500 in bribes while governor of Maryland. "Nixon sought advice from senior Congressional leaders about a replacement and Ford was strongly recommended. Ford was nominated to take Agnew's position on October 12, 1973 the first time the vice-presidential vacancy provision of the 25th Amendment had been implemented. The United States Senate voted 92 to 3 to confirm Ford on November 27. Three Senators, all Democrats, voted against Ford's confirmation: Gaylord Nelson of Wisconsin, Thomas Eagleton of Missouri and William Hathaway of Maine. On December 6, the House confirmed Ford by a vote of 387 to 35. One hour after the confirmation vote in the House, Ford took the oath of office as Vice President of the United States.
Ford's brief tenure as Vice-President was overshadowed by the continuing revelations about the Watergate scandal. Following Ford's appointment, the Watergate investigation continued and on August 1, 1974, Chief of Staff Alexander Haig contacted Ford and told him that "smoking gun" evidence had been found implicating Nixon as part of a cover-up.
When Nixon resigned on August 9, 1974, Ford assumed the presidency, making him the only person to become President without having been previously voted in as either the president or vice president. 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 told his audience: "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." He went on to state: "I have not sought this enormous responsibility, but I will not shirk it.." He added: "It is only fitting then that I should pledge to them and to you that I will be the President of all the people."

Ford gave an address in which he told the nation: "My fellow Americans, our long national nightmare is over. Our Constitution works; our great Republic is a government of laws and not of men. Here, the people rule."

As a boy, Ford was active in the Boy Scouts of America, and earned that program's highest rank, Eagle Scout. He is the only Eagle Scout to have become President of the United States. He attended Grand Rapids South High School where he was a star athlete and captain of the football team. In 1930, he was selected to the All-City team of the Grand Rapids City League and was sought after by college recruiters.
Ford attended the University of Michigan where he played center and linebacker for the school's football team, the Wolverines. The team that Ford was on had undefeated seasons and national titles in 1932 and 1933, but in his 1934 senior year, the team only won one game. During Ford's senior year, in a game against the Georgia Tech Yellow Jackets, the Yellow Jackets refused to play a scheduled game if an African-American player for Michigan named Willis Ward took the field. Despite protests from students, players and alumni, university officials opted to keep Ward out of the game. Ford was a good friend of Ward and they roomed together while on road trips. Ford reportedly threatened to quit the team in response to the university’s decision, but eventually agreed to play against Georgia Tech at Ward's request.
Ford graduated in 1935 with a Bachelor of Arts degree in economics. He turned down contract offers to play for the Detroit Lions and Green Bay Packers of the National Football League, and also turned down an offer of a coaching position at Yale. Instead he applied to the Yale law school, although he accepted an assistant coaching job for football and boxing at Yale in September 1935.
Ford spent the summer of 1937 as a student at the University of Michigan Law School and was eventually admitted to Yale Law School in the spring of 1938. He earned his LL.B. degree in 1941, graduating in the top 25 percent of his class. In the summer of 1940 Ford worked in Wendell Willkie's presidential campaign. Ford graduated from law school in 1941, and was admitted to the Michigan bar shortly thereafter.
In May 1941, Ford opened a law practice with a friend, Philip W. Buchen in Grand Rapids. Buchen would later serve as Ford's White House counsel. But when the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor took place, Ford enlisted in the Navy. He received a commission as ensign in the U.S. Naval Reserve on April 13, 1942 and a week later, on April 20, he reported for active duty to the V-5 instructor school at Annapolis, Maryland. After one month of training, he went to Navy Pre-flight School in Chapel Hill, North Carolina, where he was one of 83 instructors. He taught elementary navigation skills, ordnance, gunnery, first aid and military drill. He also coached all nine sports that were offered there. While at the Pre-flight School, he was promoted to Lieutenant Junior Grade on June 2, 1942, and to Lieutenant in March 1943.
In May of 1943 Ford was sent to the new aircraft carrier USS Monterey at Camden, New Jersey. The ship was commissioned on June 17, 1943, and Ford served on board as the assistant navigator until the end of December 1944. While he was on board, the carrier participated in many actions in the Pacific Theater with the Third and Fifth Fleets in late 1943 and 1944. In 1943, the carrier helped secure Makin Island and during the spring of 1944, the Monterey supported landings at Kwajalein and Eniwetok and participated in carrier strikes in the Marianas, Western Carolines, and northern New Guinea, as well as in the Battle of the Philippine Sea. From September to November 1944, aircraft from the Monterey launched strikes against Wake Island, participated in strikes in the Philippines and supported the landings at Leyte and Mindoro.
The Monterey was one of several ships damaged by the typhoon that hit the Third Fleet on December 18 and 19, 1944. The Third Fleet lost three destroyers and over 800 men during the typhoon. The Monterey was damaged by a fire, which was started by several of the ship's aircraft tearing loose from their cables and colliding on the hangar deck. Ford narrowly avoided becoming a casualty himself. As he was going to his battle station on the bridge of the ship in the early morning of December 18, the ship rolled twenty-five degrees, which caused Ford to lose his footing and slide toward the edge of the deck. The two-inch steel ridge around the edge of the carrier saved him from going overboard. After the fire the Monterey was declared unfit for servic. On December 24, 1944, Ford was sent to the Navy Pre-Flight School at Saint Mary's College of California, where he was assigned until the end of the war. He remained in the Navy until on June 28, 1946.
On October 15, 1948, Ford married the former Elizabeth (Betty) Bloomer Warren at Grace Episcopal Church in Grand Rapids. She was a department store fashion consultant, who had been a fashion model and a dancer in the Martha Graham Dance Company. She had previously been married to and divorced from William G. Warren.
At the time of his engagement, Ford was campaigning for what would be his first of thirteen terms as a member of the United States House of Representatives. The wedding was delayed until shortly before the elections because Ford wasn't sure how voters might feel about his marrying a divorced ex-dancer.
After returning to Grand Rapids, Ford became active in local Republican politics. He ran for the party's nomination for the congressional seat held by incumbent Republican Bartel J. Jonkman. He was successful and
was a member of the House of Representatives for 25 years, holding the Grand Rapids congressional district seat from 1949 to 1973. Remarkably, he did not write a single piece of major legislation in his entire career. He was appointed to the House Appropriations Committee two years after being elected, and was a member of the Defense Appropriations Subcommittee. In the early 1950s, Ford was asked, but declined to run for the Senate and for the Michigan governorship.
In November 1963, President Lyndon B. Johnson appointed Ford to the Warren Commission, a task force set up to investigate the assassination of President John F. Kennedy. Ford was assigned to prepare a biography of Lee Harvey Oswald, the accused assassin. Ford later said that the CIA had destroyed or kept from investigators critical secrets connected to the 1963 assassination of President John F. Kennedy. According to a 1963 FBI memo released in 2008, Ford secretly provided the FBI with information about two of his fellow commission members, both of whom were not content with the FBI's conclusions about the assassination. The FBI position was that President Kennedy was shot by a single gunman firing from the Texas Book Depository. Another 1963 memo released in 1978 stated that Ford volunteered to advise the FBI regarding the content of the commission's deliberations if his involvement with the bureau was kept confidential, a condition which the bureau approved. Ford was an outspoken proponent of the single-assassin theory.
In 1964, Democratic President Lyndon Johnson led a landslide victory for his party, securing another term as president and taking 36 seats from Republicans in the House of Representatives. Following the election, members of the Republican caucus selected Ford as their new Minority Leader. The Republicans had 140 seats in the House compared with the 295 seats held by the Democrats. The Johnson Administration proposed and passed a series of programs that was called by Johnson the "Great Society." Criticism over the Johnson Administration's handling of the Vietnam War began to grow in 1966, with Ford and Congressional Republicans expressing concern that the United States was not doing what was necessary to win the war. Public sentiment also began to move against Johnson, and the 1966 midterm elections saw the Republicans gain 47 seats. This was not enough to give Republicans a majority in the House, but the victory gave Ford considerably more influence.
Ford's critized the government's handling of the Vietnam War in a speech he gave on the floor of the House, in which he questioned whether the White House had a clear plan to bring the war to a successful conclusion.In response, President Johnson accused Ford of playing "too much football without a helmet". Johnson said "Jerry Ford is so dumb he can't fart and chew gum at the same time."
When Richard Nixon was elected President in 1968, Ford's role shifted to being an advocate for the White House agenda. Congress passed several of Nixon's proposals, including the National Environmental Policy Act and the Tax Reform Act of 1969.
On October 10, 1973, Vice President Spiro Agnew resigned and then pleaded no contest to criminal charges of tax evasion and money laundering, part of a negotiated resolution to a scheme in which he accepted $29,500 in bribes while governor of Maryland. "Nixon sought advice from senior Congressional leaders about a replacement and Ford was strongly recommended. Ford was nominated to take Agnew's position on October 12, 1973 the first time the vice-presidential vacancy provision of the 25th Amendment had been implemented. The United States Senate voted 92 to 3 to confirm Ford on November 27. Three Senators, all Democrats, voted against Ford's confirmation: Gaylord Nelson of Wisconsin, Thomas Eagleton of Missouri and William Hathaway of Maine. On December 6, the House confirmed Ford by a vote of 387 to 35. One hour after the confirmation vote in the House, Ford took the oath of office as Vice President of the United States.
Ford's brief tenure as Vice-President was overshadowed by the continuing revelations about the Watergate scandal. Following Ford's appointment, the Watergate investigation continued and on August 1, 1974, Chief of Staff Alexander Haig contacted Ford and told him that "smoking gun" evidence had been found implicating Nixon as part of a cover-up.
When Nixon resigned on August 9, 1974, Ford assumed the presidency, making him the only person to become President without having been previously voted in as either the president or vice president. 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 told his audience: "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." He went on to state: "I have not sought this enormous responsibility, but I will not shirk it.." He added: "It is only fitting then that I should pledge to them and to you that I will be the President of all the people."

Ford gave an address in which he told the nation: "My fellow Americans, our long national nightmare is over. Our Constitution works; our great Republic is a government of laws and not of men. Here, the people rule."