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Ford held the offices of Vice-President and President, but was never elected to either. He was appointed Vice-President, following the resignation of Spiro Agnew, who had pleaded no contest to charges of tax evasion and money laundering. It was the first time that the provisions of the 25th Amendment to the Constitution were used to fill a vacancy in the Vice-President's office.
On August 9, 1974, Richard Nixon resigned the Presidency and Ford was sworn in as President. Ford promised to restore integrity to the White House. On September 8, 1974, he pardoned Richard Nixon and his popularity was severely injured as a result of this. The video below shows Ford's pardon of Nixon being announced by him on national television:
Two assassination attempts were made on Ford's life. The first occurred while Ford was in Sacramento, California on September 5, 1975. Lynette "Squeaky" Fromme, a follower of Charles Manson, pointed a Colt .45-caliber handgun at Ford. As Fromme pulled the trigger, Larry Buendorf, a Secret Service agent, grabbed the gun and managed to insert the webbing of his thumb under the hammer, preventing the gun from firing. It was later found that, although the semi-automatic pistol had four cartridges in the magazine, the slide had not been pulled to place a round in the firing chamber, making it impossible for the gun to fire. Fromme was taken into custody; she was later convicted of attempted assassination of the President and was sentenced to life in prison, but was paroled on August 14, 2009.
Seventeen days later, as Ford left the St. Francis Hotel in downtown San Francisco, Sara Jane Moore, standing in a crowd of onlookers across the street, pointed her .38-caliber revolver at him. Just before she fired, former Marine Oliver Sipple grabbed at the gun and deflected her shot. The bullet struck a wall about six inches above and to the right of Ford's head, then ricocheted and hit a taxi driver, who was wounded. Moore was later sentenced to life in prison. She was paroled from prison on December 31, 2007, having served 32 years.
Ford ran for election to the office of President in the 1980 election, but lost to Jimmy Carter. Although he gained a lot of ground on Carter over the campaign, his pardon of Nixon is often cited as the reason for his defeat. Ford died on December 26, 2006, at his home in Rancho Mirage, California, of arteriosclerotic cerebrovascular disease and diffuse arteriosclerosis. His age at the time of his death was 93 years and 165 days, making Ford the longest-lived U.S. President.
Following his death, author Thomas DeFord published his book entitled Write it When I'm Gone which recounted some off-the-record conversations with Ford in which the former president expressed some very candid opinions about such subjects as Ronald Reagan, the Lewinsky scandal and the Iraq war.
