monalisa
12-26-2006, 09:34 PM
Former President Gerald Ford Has Died
Updated: 12/26/2006 11:50:19 PM
Gerald R. Ford, who picked up the pieces of Richard Nixon's scandal-shattered White House as the 38th and only unelected president in America's history, has died, his wife, Betty, said Tuesday. He was 93.
The statement, by Betty, 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 Rochester, Minn.
He was the longest living president, followed by Ronald Reagan, who also died at 93.
Ford was an accidental president, Nixon's hand-picked successor, a man of much political experience who had never run on a national ticket. Ford took office minutes after Nixon resigned in disgrace over the Watergate scandal. But he revived the debate over Watergate 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 U.S. during his presidency with the fall of Saigon in April 1975.
He was in the White House only 895 days, but changed it more than it changed him.
Updated: 12/26/2006 11:50:19 PM
Gerald R. Ford, who picked up the pieces of Richard Nixon's scandal-shattered White House as the 38th and only unelected president in America's history, has died, his wife, Betty, said Tuesday. He was 93.
The statement, by Betty, 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 Rochester, Minn.
He was the longest living president, followed by Ronald Reagan, who also died at 93.
Ford was an accidental president, Nixon's hand-picked successor, a man of much political experience who had never run on a national ticket. Ford took office minutes after Nixon resigned in disgrace over the Watergate scandal. But he revived the debate over Watergate 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 U.S. during his presidency with the fall of Saigon in April 1975.
He was in the White House only 895 days, but changed it more than it changed him.