During one of the darkest days of the Watergate scandal, Nixon secretly confided in Ford, at the time the House minority leader. He begged for help. He complained about fair-weather friends and swore at perceived rivals in his own party. "Tell the guys, goddamn it, to get off their ass and start fighting back," Nixon pleaded with Ford in one call recorded by the president's secret taping system.Woodward pushes forward the question whether Ford really was chosen as VP simply because he was objectively the best person for the job and whether Ford really did pardon Nixon for the stated reason of moving the country forward. These are dark and critical questions that Woodward is now free to raise. We're honoring the dead President this week, and that is fitting, but historical understanding is more important. What should we really think of President Ford?
And Ford did. "Anytime you want me to do anything, under any circumstances, you give me a call, Mr. President," he told Nixon during that May 1, 1973, conversation. "We'll stand by you morning, noon and night."...
"You've got a hell of a lot of friends up here," Ford told him, "both Republican and Democrat, and don't worry about anybody being sunshine soldiers or summer patriots."
"Well, never Jerry Ford," Nixon replied. "But if you could get a few congressmen and senators to speak up and say a word, for Christ's sakes."
Ford was played a copy of that tape in 2005. Although the existence of Nixon's secret taping system had been publicly disclosed in 1973, no such tapes of Ford had come to public attention, and the former president seemed stunned. "I remember vividly that," he said, recalling how Nixon often turned to him to get things done on the Hill. He added that he considered himself to be Nixon's "only real friend."
December 29, 2006
New light on the Nixon-Ford relationship.
Bob Woodward reveals information he characterizes as showing that Gerald Ford and Richard Nixon were closer friends than we'd thought:
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Must pardons only be detached instances of charity? What is wrong with a mixed motive pardon, especially if its consequences are good for the nation?
The years of relative calm that followed the pardon, compared to the serious waste of time incurred by the Clinton hearings (and the desire for retribution by impeaching Bush), are evidence that a trial of Nixon would have been far more damaging to the US than his crimes.
That is, we moved on. And it was better for us than an expensive endless legal proceeding to prove what we already knew.
You are correct on the need for fact and historical accuracy but couldn't the Woodward article release date wait a few days until after interment?
Interesting comments surrounding Hale Boggs. I just saw the interview of Ford by Boggs' daughter Cokie Roberts. I wonder if she knew of those comments at the time of that interview.
Who is ever chosen simply because they're the best person for the job? Especially by a paranoid type like Richard Nixon?
There were dark mutterings at the time of a prior deal for a pardon. Most likely, Nixon chose Ford because he trusted him and believed him loyal.
vw: cnlyst
Of course you are correct for the need for fact and historical accuracy but couldn't the Woodward article release date wait a few more days until after interment?
Interesting comments surrounding Hale Boggs. I just saw the interview of Ford by Boggs' daughter Cokie Roberts. I wonder if she knew of those comments at the time of that interview.
Couldn't that glory-seeking asshole have at least had thr decency to wait until Pres. Ford was buried?
Gahrie is right -- Ford did the decent thing on a number of levels; Woodward, on none.
Tapes shmapes, wasn't Chevy Chase the equivalent of Ken Burns as a documentarian of the Ford presidency?
"Couldn't that glory-seeking asshole have at least had thr decency to wait until Pres. Ford was buried"
to start with his "revelations" about things some dead politician told him - and nobody else, including their closest friends and family - about how they really agreed with Woodward's view of things, despite whatever they may have said/wrote/done while alive?
Ann says: "Woodward pushes forward the question whether Ford really was chosen as VP simply because he was objectively the best person for the job and whether Ford really did pardon Nixon for the stated reason of moving the country forward. These are dark and critical questions that Woodward is now free to raise."
It's odd that, in (re-)considering very public acts by very public actors, Ann deems the nuances of motivation to be the "dark and critical questions." Dark they undoubtedly are, in the sense that there will never be much light that anyone can shed on them. If one is inclined to doubt the actors' public statements at the time, why should one be more inclined to credit whatever the same players may say decades later, when they are well into old age with all the tricks that aging (to say nothing of a cagey interviewer) can play on memory? Thus people can speculate and construct whatever story suits their fancy. A perfect set-up for a blog-storm.
But I don't see any sense in which those questions could be deemed "critical". Nothing turned on such fine distinctions among possible motivating factors then, and certainly nothing turns on any of that now. So how "critical"? And the question whether Ford was "objectively the best person for the job" is unanswerable, indeed, nonsensical. We've never been able to agree "objectively" on the criteria that would make the "best" president or vice president. If we could, then a philosopher-king would be far preferable. Because we can't, we hold elections instead. That Ford was "elected" by a nomination-confirmation process rather than a popular ballot doesn't change the fact that the "electors" in Ford's case could never have agreed on any such "objective" criteria any more than the voters at large.
Here as elsewhere Ann reveals the mentality of a poet rather than an historian. She wants to get at the truth about these individuals, to see into their souls. Good luck. But little that Woodward produces in terms of interviews is likely to be helpful in that endeavor.
These are dark and critical questions that Woodward is now free to raise.
Come again? These are questions that have been raised time and again for more than 30 years. And Woodward has certainly done his fair share of raising them over, and over, and over, so there is no "now free" about it.
Nothing stopped Woodward while Ford was alive, except fear of libel, perhaps. Maybe that's it - Woodward is "now free" to libel the dead. I say, go for it, Bob. Thirty years of digging has produced a vast mountain of no evidence, but don't let that stop you.
If you choose the Rather route, though, Bob, be sure to locate an IBM Selectric manufactured in the '70's.
The man isn't even buried yet and the vultures, professional Nixon-haters, and conpiracy-whakos are busy picking at the corpse.
What a load of horse shit.
Nixon was doing things far worse than the plumbers so please don't minimize it. There were a lot of NON hippie citizens who didn't do drugs, did do the free love game, didn't occupy university offices, who WERE offended deeply by what was revealed in the hearings and frankly would not have been crushed if Nixon had been drawn and quartered.
BUT we forgave Ford for what he did and even though the country was very ready to believe that there was a deal (and that was Nixon's fault directly because after what came out of his Imperial Presidency was deal after deal after deal). Everyone calmed down and we owe that to Ford.
Nixon did a lot of good. History has rewarded him as much as he deserves for China and a lot of lesser things that meant a great deal to ordinary people. Ford is much the same. The relationship might be just that they both had some good points and one, Nixon, had more bad than we can count.
At least Ford made a decision - we didn't like it at the time but history proved him correct.
ohhhh and least I forget, Woodward probably should crawl back under some rock. The entire episode of the Ford tape is a poor choice, poorly managed, poorly considered and helpful to no one.
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