U.S.citizens celebrate the life of another great son this week with the passing of former President Gerald Ford just three days after entertainment and civil rights icon James Brown .
Gerald R. Ford, who picked up the pieces of Richard Nixon's
scandal-shattered White House as the 38th and only unelected president in
"My family joins me in sharing the difficult news that
Gerald Ford, our beloved husband, father, grandfather and great grandfather has
passed away at 93 years of age," Mrs. Ford said in a brief statement
issued from her husband's office in Rancho Mirage. "His life was filled with
love of God, his family and his country."
The statement did not say where Ford died or list a
cause of death. Ford had battled pneumonia in January 2006 and underwent two
heart treatments - including an angioplasty - in August at the Mayo Clinic in
He was the longest living president, followed by
Ronald Reagan, who also died at 93. Ford had been living at his desert home in
Rancho Mirage,
Ford was an accidental president, Nixon's hand-picked
successor, a man of much political experience who had never run on a national
ticket. He was as open and straight-forward as Nixon was tightly controlled and
conspiratorial.
He took office minutes after Nixon flew off into
exile and declared "our long national nightmare is over." But he
revived the debate a month later by granting Nixon a pardon for all crimes he
committed as president. That single act, it was widely believed, cost Ford
election to a term of his own in 1976, but it won praise in later years as a
courageous act that allowed the nation to move on.
The Vietnam War ended in defeat for the
Ford also earned a place in the history books as the
first unelected vice president, chosen by Nixon to replace Spiro Agnew who also
was forced from office by scandal.
He was in the White House only 895 days, but changed
it more than it changed him.
Even after two women tried separately to kill him,
the presidency of Jerry Ford remained open and plain.
Not imperial. Not reclusive. And, of greatest
satisfaction to a nation numbed by Watergate, not dishonest.
Even to millions of Americans who had voted two
years earlier for Richard Nixon, the transition to Ford's leadership was one of
the most welcomed in the history of the democratic process - despite the fact
that it occurred without an election.
After the Watergate ordeal, Americans liked their
new president - and first lady Betty, whose candor charmed the country.
They liked her for speaking openly about problems of
young people, including her own daughter; they admired her for not hiding that
she had a mastectomy - in fact, her example caused thousands of women to seek
breast examinations.
And she remained one of the country's most admired
women even after the Fords left the White House when she was hospitalized in
1978 and admitted to having become addicted to drugs and alcohol she took for
painful arthritis and a pinched nerve in her neck. Four years later she founded
the
Ford slowed down in recent years. He had been
hospitalized in August 2000 when he suffered one or more small strokes while
attending the Republican National Convention in
The following year, he joined former presidents
Carter, Bush and Clinton at a memorial service in
In January, Ford was hospitalized with pneumonia for
12 days. He wasn't seen in public until April 23, when President Bush was in
town and paid a visit to the Ford home. Bush, Ford and Betty posed for
photographers outside the residence before going inside for a private
get-together.
The intensely private couple declined reporter
interview requests and were rarely seen outside their home in Rancho Mirage's
gated Thunderbird Estates, other than to attend worship services at the nearby
St. Margaret's Episcopal Church in
