Gerald Ford Biography

(born July 14, 1913, Omaha, Neb., U.S.—died Dec. 26, 2006, Rancho Mirage, Calif.) 38th president of the United States (1974–77), who, as 40th vice president, succeeded to the presidency on the resignation of President Richard M. Nixon under the process decreed by the Twenty-fifth Amendment to the Constitution and thereby became the country's only chief executive who was not elected as either president or vice president. His first act upon assuming office was to grant his predecessor “a full, free, and absolute pardon.” (For a discussion of the history and nature of the presidency, presidency of the United States of America.)

While Ford was still an infant, his parents were divorced, and his mother moved to Grand Rapids, Mich., where she married Gerald R. Ford, Sr., who adopted the boy and gave him his name. After graduating from the University of Michigan (1935), where he was a star gridiron-football player, Ford worked as an assistant coach while he earned a law degree from Yale University (1941). He joined the navy during World War II and served in the South Pacific, attaining the rank of lieutenant commander and nearly losing his life in 1944 during a deadly typhoon that killed hundreds. In 1948, the year he won his first elective office, as Republican congressman from Michigan, he married Elizabeth Anne Bloomer (Betty Ford), with whom he had four children—three sons (Michael, John, and Steven) and one daughter (Susan).

Ford served in Congress for 25 years. Well-liked and ideologically flexible, he won the role of House minority leader in 1965 and held this position until Nixon named him vice president in 1973. During his time in Congress, he had developed a reputation for honesty and openness. When Nixon's vice president, Spiro T. Agnew, was forced to resign from office in disgrace, the president had no choice but to nominate the only Republican whom the Democratic leadership of Congress would approve, the affable Jerry Ford.

In 1974, when it became clear that Nixon would face criminal charges for his role in the Watergate Scandal and three articles of impeachment had been passed by the House Judiciary Committee, Nixon resigned, effective August 9. On that day, Ford took the oath of office and became president, stating, “Our long national nightmare is over.” He retained the foreign and domestic policy staffs of the Nixon administration, including Secretary of State Henry Kissinger. ( primary source document: First Address to Congress and the Nation. Cabinet of President Gerald R. Ford.)