A courageous choice by an accidental president

Fifty years ago, America was riveted by a controversial pardon. But unlike President Joe Biden’s self-serving exoneration of his son Hunter Biden, this pardon actually served the nation. It was a decision made by an accidental chief executive. Gerald Ford never wanted to be president. He aspired, instead, to be speaker of the House and was working his way up in the leadership ranks in the people’s chamber. But history would intervene, and he would be sworn in as the 38th president of the United States.

Born Leslie Lynch King Jr. to an alcoholic, abusive, and absent father, the future leader was adopted by his stepfather and later assumed his name. He was a standout athlete at his Grand Rapids, Mich., high school and went on to play college football and major in economics at the University of Michigan followed by Yale Law School. After Pearl Harbor, Ford entered the Navy and worked his way up to lieutenant commander before returning to Michigan. He ran for Congress as a Republican in 1948, a year when Democrat Harry Truman shocked the nation and won the presidential election.

Ford quickly became a leader in the House and during his 16 terms served in several important roles, including on the Warren Commission that investigated the assassination of President John F. Kennedy. In 1965, he became House minority leader, a job he relished. Ford would have continued in Congress his entire life had not a series of events conspired to bring him into the White House.

In 1967, in response to the assassination of Kennedy and the illnesses of President Dwight Eisenhower while in office, Congress passed and the states ratified the 25th Amendment to the U.S. Constitution. Before this, it was tradition, though not entirely clear in the Constitution, that the sitting vice president would succeed the president upon his death. But beyond that, the lines were blurred. The urgency of the need for the 25th Amendment also was apparent during the height of the Cold War when a lack of clarity of presidential succession threatened America’s stability,

In October 1973, Richard Nixon’s vice president, Spiro T. Agnew, resigned after allegations of tax evasion. Nixon, who was already embattled by the encroaching Watergate scandal, needed to appoint a vice president who could be approved by a Democratic Congress that was not inclined to do the weakening president any favors. Others were considered, but Ford was chosen and sworn in on Dec. 6, 1973, due to his reputation for decency and bipartisanship.

Eight months later, Nixon became the first and only president to resign from office, and Gerald Ford became president. His appointment was due to the subtle turns of history. Had a janitor not discovered a taped-over lock at the Watergate Hotel and called the police and had Congress not passed a tweak in the policy of presidential succession, perhaps only political scientists would remember Ford’s name.

Ford’s role in history was short but consequential for a nation traumatized by the scandal of Watergate. His brief inaugural speech, reassuring a nation that “our long national nightmare is over,” reflected his healing tenure as commander in chief. But it was his controversial move to pardon his predecessor, the disgraced Richard Nixon, that has proved, a century later, to be courageous in hindsight.

Ford desired to spare America from the trial of a former president and to allow the nation to move beyond the multiyear ordeal that threatened national unity and our presence on the world stage amid increasing fears of conflict with the Soviet Union. At the time, his decision caused his short-lived popularity to plummet. It was likely the single biggest factor in his close loss to Jimmy Carter in the 1976 presidential election. But history has proved Ford right, so much so that even his critics, including crusading journalist Bob Woodward, have hailed it as “an act of courage.”

Ford isn’t regarded by many as one of America’s greatest chief executives, and aside from a few accomplishments, his tenure at 1600 Pennsylvania Ave. was unremarkable. His moderate social policy would not be greeted warmly by most social conservatives and would give way to the Reagan Revolution.

Yet Ford selflessly served his nation at a time of great peril. He brought healing to the country after one of its most divisive eras. And his decision to pardon Richard Nixon half a century ago was among the most courageous a president has ever made.