Ford Friendship A Factor In Nixon Pardon

(CBS/AP)  Former President Gerald Ford acknowledged in an interview last year that his long personal friendship with Richard Nixon did indeed play a role in his decision to pardon the disgraced former president, The Washington Post reported.

"I looked upon him as my personal friend. And I always treasured our relationship. And I had no hesitancy about granting the pardon, because I felt that we had this relationship and that I didn't want to see my real friend have the stigma" of standing trial, Ford told Post reporter Bob Woodward.

Ford's remarks, which he asked not be released until his death, add to the rationale for pardoning Nixon a month after he resigned as president in 1974. Ford had claimed that he issued the pardon to allow the nation to move past Watergate and begin a time of healing, not for personal reasons.

Nixon and Ford had been acquainted since the late 1940s, but the depth of their friendship was not widely known. Nixon confided in Ford and sought his help during the Watergate crisis when Ford was House minority leader, the Post reported.

"I think that Nixon felt I was about the only person he could really trust on the Hill," Ford told Woodward. He also called himself Nixon's "only real friend."

"Anytime you want me to do anything, under any circumstances, you give me a call, Mr. President," Ford told Nixon during a May 1, 1973, telephone call, in which the embattled president told the Michigan congressman he was being abandoned by fair-weather friends on Capitol Hill.

That was the day after Nixon had announced the resignation of two top aides, H.R. "Bob" Haldeman and John D. Ehrlichman, the Post reports. The Nixon administration was unraveling.

Woodward played a copy of the White House recording of that conversation for Ford during the 2005 interview. Although the existence of the White House tapes had been known since 1973, Woodward reports Ford seemed stunned that that conversation was among them, but said he remembered it "vividly."

[randalds]

Whenever Nixon was in trouble Ford was there.
Posted by jsilver2th at 03:49 AM : Dec 30, 2006

Yes, but as friends. I think Jerry actually thought Nixon could be turned around because he saw that there was a chance to do it. I just can't accept the idea that Jerry was involved in any underhanded dealings vis-a-vis Nixon. That just wasn't Jerry's personality. Jerry was the original Boy Scout. There wasn't a corrupt bone in his body. None. Not one. He may have been used, but he couldn't conceptualize anything deceptive. He was just too pathologically honest.

[lucasnico]

the only factor in Ford's pardoning of Nixon was the Kennedy assasination and what they both knew.........glad both of their sorry butts are gone!

[condumism]

CRONYISM a factor in FORD pardon of Nixon, PERIOD! Cons rule no differently today then they ever have.

[bluestardad]

Ford Covered up for the Rule America Gang. I am tired of hearing about this dead guy. He was there to support the Warren Commission%u2019s Magic Bullet Theory where one bullet can shoot thru two men one of which in three directions and come out the man's head, then he was ask to be Vice President by a guy who Resigned the Presidents office and he later pardoned, also he watched as Vietnam fell to the Communist, who turned to the Communist for help after asking America for help unifying their country twenty years earlier, after they had fought the Japanese with us during the second world war. We chose the side of the Dutch and French to regain their Pre war colony, who were our European Allies over Supporting the Vietnamese.

[bluestardad]

For those of you who missed American History Week at your school, we have filled the schools up with so much diversity training we never get to American History, Blue Star's are for those who's family members serve during time of war. Bush, Cheney, and the Neo-con Chicken Hawks have sent our children into this war of choice and have now tried to cover up their folly with the execution of one of their long time middle east tools so he cannot testify against them in their up and coming War Crimes Trials. This war was about OIL nothing more. Our military did what they were ordered to do bravely while Haliburton, Kellog Brown and Root made Billions on No Bid Contracts Kuwait and Saudi Arabia Slant Drilled Iraqi Oil and Bush Administration Provided the cover.

[jsilver2th]

To RandalDS: As I said this Warren Commission was a tour of duty for Ford. I don't say it in disrepect, it's important American history. I tend to agree with you that "Ford had to maintain the story." However, Kennedy had many enemies. Obviously one of them had "gotten" to him, as you put it. Even up to the end when I think it was the History Channel concluded that Lyndon Johnson had ordering the JFK murder, Ford was right there.
People are going to make their own conclusions about that murder but in fact the killing placed LBJ in the Presidency and his let's say personality suited some government insiders like J Edgar Hoover for example as well as paving the way for the reascendency of Richard Nixon under some form on inside job theory would also be a scenario where "Ford had to maintain the story."
Then after Watergate "Ford had to maintain the story" as well? Nixon's pardon drew the line and contained continuing investigation in Nixon's history of political crimes. It may have been for the good of the country, but I'm not sure history is through with these issues yet. Whenever Nixon was in trouble Ford was there.

[randalds]

For years he defended the findings of the Commission that Lee Harvey Oswald acted alone every time critics alleged a conspiracy that lead to Dallas. Hardly a minor role in US History even for a President.

Posted by jsilver2th at 12:12 AM : Dec 30, 2006

It's only right that he did. I mean JFK's assassination could not be more obviously a Mafia hit and no one in our government would ever want to admit that even the president could be gotten to. Ford had to maintain the story.

[jsilver2th]

Well I just listened to a couple more hours of talking heads on CNN, CBS, PBS, MSNBC- lots of history on Ford but never a mention of his tour of duty on the Warren Commission. For years he defended the findings of the Commission that Lee Harvey Oswald acted alone every time critics alleged a conspiracy that lead to Dallas. Hardly a minor role in US History even for a President.

[lucasnico]

17 missing minutes of the Nixon tapes have everything to do with Ford's pardoning of Nixon.... anybody who was old enough remembers exactly where they were and what they were doing when they heard Kennedy had been murdered. Not Nixon....for five years after, when asked, he couldn't come up with an answer...until pinned down by Time Magazine in 1968.....the answer.... Nixon was in Dallas.

[defirststate]

"War Crimes" ... President Bush. What ... smoking and how do you stand upright? I am just amazed ... the DNC talking points. Such drones, and I'll bet you all think you are "criticle thinkers", what a joke.
Posted by ObiWan234 at 02:31 PM : Dec 29, 2006

I've received no talking points from DNC or anyone. I've been smoking nothing and stand upright. I'm not a drone so my mistakes are all mine. War crimes in relation to bush include many possibilities. The CIA's extraordinary renditions violate any number of nations' laws and those of the EU. Prisoner abuse, interrogation and torture have been reported and confirmed through documents a court ordered released on appeal under the F.O.I. Act detailing war crimes under the direction of the Sec. Def., Rummy.

The Geneva Conventions, "Occupiers of a land must honor the safety, dignity, religious beliefs and cultural mores of the people there. Occupying powers are obliged to support the health and safety of the population with food and medical supplies (or by allowing humanitarian shipments of the same)." Disbanding the Iraqi army and police without pay, meant 1000's of unemployed, pissed off guys with guns were loose. Had the US provided for safety and security before the 'no-bid'(thank you) contracts, there would be no Iraqi civil war.

The drone status is more likely to belong to a criticle (not critical) thinker, like a willfully ignorant bushie who refuses to acknowledge that the emperor has no clothes, that's sad, not a joke.