The Healer

Gerald Rudolph Ford was the thirty eighth president of the United States. He was nicknamed the Eagle Scout President because he was the first that had been a Boy Scout. He was also known as the “accidental” president because he was the only president not elected by the American people. When President Richard Nixon’s vice-president Spiro Agnew resigned facing charges of income tax fraud, Nixon appointed and Congress approved Ford as vice-president. About a year later, Nixon faced impeachment because of his alleged cover-up of the Watergate burglary. He resigned and Gerald Ford was sworn in as President on August, 9, 1974. He served until 1977.

He was born Leslie Lynch King, Jr. on July 14, 1913 in Omaha, Nebraska. His mother divorced his father when he was two years old and moved them to her hometown of Grand Rapids, Michigan. She remarried a paint store owner who adopted Leslie and renamed him Gerald Rudolph Ford, Jr. He had three half brothers and they were raised by their father’s three rules of conduct, “work hard, speak the truth, and come to dinner on time.” Young Ford was a great athlete. He lettered in five sports in high school, but his favorite was football. He went to the University of Michigan on a football scholarship and was named Most Valuable Player in his senior year. He was offered contracts from the Green Bay Packers and the Detroit Lions to play

Thornton 2 professionally, but he turned them down. He really wanted to study law. He took a job as assistant football coach and freshman boxing coach at Yale. He took a few law classes and did so well he was invited to study law at the college. Getting a late start, he didn’t graduate from law school until he was 27.

He went back to Grand Rapids and started a law o...

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...ginning of the end of Soviet domination in Eastern Europe.

Ford was defeated by Democrat Jimmy Carter in 1976. He had remained faithful and steady during his presidency and in two short years had restored trust in the government, reduced inflation, boosted the economy and improved foreign policy.

Gerald R. Ford died December 26, 2006 as the nation’s longest lived president. His obituary ran for three pages in the New York Times. The word used over and over by commentaries around the world analyzing what his life meant was “healer”. His most enduring legacy was that he healed America.

Works Cited

Brinkley, Douglas. Gerald R. Ford. New York: Henry Holt & Company, 2007. Print.

Ford, Gerald. A Time to Heal. New York: Harper & Row, 1979. Print.

Ford, Gerald. “Swearing in of the Vice Presidency.” Capital Building. Washington, D.C.

6 December 1973. Keynote Address.