Gerald Ford Failure Essay

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Throughout the years, we have had a total of forty-five presidents. Those of all which have all had both numerous successes and failures. An interesting president to evaluate, however, is Gerald Ford. He was not in office for very long but left still managed to leave a clear impact on the United States.
The most unique thing about Gerald Ford is how he got into the presidency to begin with. In 1972, there was a break in into the Democratic National Committee headquarters at the Watergate Hotel in Washington, DC. Many of Nixon’s administration officials knew about the break in and the president himself took part in trying to cover up those illegal activities. As all of this became public knowledge, Nixon’s Vice President, Spiro T. Agnew, resigned …show more content…

He made some changes but kept some things the same. For instance, Ford asked Nixon’s chief foreign policy adviser to stay on in his administration. Anyways, the new foreign policy also had both successes and failures. Ford basically had to watch as the country fell to North Vietnamese forces in 1975 due to being unable to convince Congress to approve further military aid to the South. Later that year, though, he was able to reduce US tensions with the Soviet Union by signing the Helsinki Accords. The Helsinki Accords addressed many prominent global issues but all in all it was an attempt to improves the relationships between the Western countries and the Communist …show more content…

He initially ran for Congress in 1948 and remained a member of the House until becoming the Vice President in 1973. He served on the House Appropriations Committee, which decides how much money is going to be spent for what, after only his 2nd year of being a member. With this, he learned all of the ins and outs of the government: how it works and what works and what doesn’t work. Ford was also a supporter of the Marshall Plan and several other anti-communist initiatives. More importantly, he was a member of the Warren Commission as well, which investigated the assassination of John F. Kennedy. Not to forget, he also became the House Minority leader in 1965.
One of Ford’s most important acts as president was probably when he appointed John Paul Stevens to the Supreme Court. Stevens is well known for supporting the rights of individuals in his decisions. For instance, he made it publicly known that he believed the choice to have an abortion should be in the hands of the woman, not judges. Stevens also became a strong opponent of the death penalty, believing that it was unconstitutional. Overall, he had a strong influence in the Supreme Court until he finally retired in

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