A worthy addition to the series

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	• Gerald R. Ford Douglas Brinkley Times Books, 2007 - 224 pages average customer review:based on 11 reviews view larger image
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highly recommended

Gerald Ford

Ford was our longest living president at 93, outliving Reagan by 46 days. He became president without a single vote. Nixon put him in office as someone who would grant him a pardon. Ford became known for his clumsiness, tripping and bumping his head at every opportunity. He put his foot in his mouth in a debate with Jimmy Carter when he declared that Poland was not dominated by the Soviet Union.

Meet President Gerald Ford

Well known historian Douglas Brinkley has written this brief biography, as a part of the American Presidents series of works. In the series editor's Introduction, Arthur Schlesinger, Jr. notes that (Page xv): "The president is the central player in the American political order." Gerald Ford was an accidental president, taking over after Richard Nixon's downfall resulting from Watergate and his subsequent resignation.

Gerald Ford's name at birth was Leslie Lynch King, Jr. His father had a violent temper and the marriage did not last long. His mother later married Gerald Rudolf Ford; after a time, her son was renamed Gerald Rudolph (an Americanized version of the stepfather's middle name) Ford. As a youngster, he excelled at athletics and even had the possibility of a pro football career. However, he chose law school and, shortly after that, electoral politics. He saw action in World War II.

When he was elected to the House of Representatives 1948, he began to formulate the ambition to become Speaker of the House. His chosen career was in the legislature. The book does a nice job profiling his rise in the House, with carefully crafted advancement through the ranks; it also depicts the start of a long-time friendship between Ford and Richard Nixon.

When Ford finally became Minority Leader in the House, he used his conciliatory approach well. As Brinkley says (Page 31), ". . .he played the good coach, giving his squad wide latitude to speak their minds. In exchange, he wanted no bickering. Ford's open forum proved smart strategy." Some tho9ught him rather slow of thought, but his amiability and ability to work with others represented a great strength.

When Nixon was elected President, he tended not to work so well with Congress--including his own Republican mates. Ford did not distinguish himself with his unabating support for Nixon after Watergate became a public matter; after former Attorney General John Mitchell reported that the White House was not involved, Ford clung to that long after so many others had seen through the falsehoods.

Then, the unlikely story of his rise to Vice-President and his subsequent ascension to the presidency after Nixon's downfall. The book does a nice job in a brief space noting the major decisions/actions of the Ford Administration, some working out well and some not so well. Here, we read about Whip Inflation Now, swine flu, the withdrawal from Viet Nam, the Mayaguez incident, the Helsinki Accords, and so on. The internecine Republic nomination politics of 1976 essentially doomed him to lose to Jimmy Carter. Then, the amazing life after the presidency and people's changing reflections on his accomplishments. . . .

Another well turned work in the American Presidents series. These short volumes cannot go into the depth that I would sometimes like, but the tradeoff is accessible books for people who might not have the patience to wade through a 600 page tome.

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A Man for One Season

Writing a short biography on a president who served such a brief time is a difficult proposition. It is to Brinkley's credit that he did not try to do more with his subject than what the subject deserves (such as Kevin Phillips failed work on William McKinley). Fortunately, Ford is not as an obscure, or I should say unimportant, a presidential figure as some others (e.g., Chester Arthur).

The most dramatic issue for Ford was his pardon of Nixon. The author concludes that Ford acted correctly. Perhaps this is true, that is debatable. I lived through the same time (I almost voted for Ford in '76) and I am not sure that the country would not have been better served if a trial did occur. It may have prevented the recent efforts to devise an imperial presidency and the resulting calamity in foreign/domestic policies. Ford thought that a 1913 Supreme Court decision made clear that Nixon accepted the pardon and his guilt. That was not an accurate conclusion. His position would have made more sense if Ford required Nixon to have explicitly agreed with that conclusion. Ford didn't and Nixon spent much of his remaining years still deflecting blame.

Left out of the bio was the significant revelation after Ford's death that he criticized Bush's Iraq War, but he directed that his thoughts not be published until after his death. In strengthening Ford's stature by highlighting his character, the author seems to have conveniently lost the chance to consider if his silence was consistent with the character issue. In fact, Ford was a party man to the death. His silence, therefore, is consistent with that stance, but was that of high character?

Regardless, I too accept Ford as a very decent person and his presidency was at least (but no more) of average significance. His Helsinki agreement is rightly cited in this book as a landmark act. He was, though, a poor national candidate and that prevented an extension of his presidency.

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My dad liked this gift..

My dad enjoyed Gerald Ford as President because of his honesty, integrity, and rare human quality.

A worthy addition to the series

This is a good book. It makes you realize that Ford was really a hard working, intelligent, well qualified person at the time that he was selected to be Vice President. It also brings to life, the 70's. As the country gets ready to celebrate another birthday, we can also celebrate the persons who have been willing to get involved in service to their country.

reviews: page 1, 2, 3

The ?accidental? president whose innate decency and steady hand restored the presidency after its greatest crisis When Gerald R. Ford entered the White House in August 1974, he inherited a presidency tarnished by the Watergate scandal, the economy was in a recession, the Vietnam War was drawing to a close, and he had taken office without having been elected. Most observers gave him little chance of success, especially after he pardoned Richard Nixon just a month into his presidency, an action that outraged many Americans, but which Ford thought was necessary to move the nation forward.
Many people today think of Ford as a man who stumbled a lot--clumsy on his feet and in politics--but acclaimed historian Douglas Brinkley shows him to be a man of independent thought and conscience, who never allowed party loyalty to prevail over his sense of right and wrong. As a young congressman, he stood up to the isolationists in the Republican leadership, promoting a vigorous role for America in the world. Later, as House minority leader and as president, he challenged the right wing of his party, refusing to bend to their vision of confrontation with the Communist world. And after the fall of Saigon, Ford also overruled his advisers by allowing Vietnamese refugees to enter the United States, arguing that to do so was the humane thing to do.
Brinkley draws on exclusive interviews with Ford and on previously unpublished documents (including a remarkable correspondence between Ford and Nixon stretching over four decades), fashioning a masterful reassessment of Gerald R. Ford?s presidency and his underappreciated legacy to the nation.

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