Toggle navigation. Gerald R. President Gerald R. September 8, By the President of the United States of America a Proclamation Richard Nixon became the thirty-seventh President of the United States on January 20, and was reelected in for a second term by the electors of forty-nine of the fifty states. But that question would hang over the Ford presidency for the next month, amplified by a host of Washington powers who had crucial and competing interests in how it would be answered.
The Democratic-controlled Congress looked not only toward the midterm elections of but also toward the presidential election of —and toward an electorate that seemed deeply divided on the question of Nixon's rightful legal fate. The Watergate special prosecutor, Leon Jaworski, agonized over the legal and moral consequences for Nixon, and for the coming trial of Watergate conspirators including H.
The holdover White House chief of staff, Alexander M. Haig, had brokered Nixon's resignation but did not consider the matter closed at that. In fact, just eight days before the resignation, while still serving Nixon, Haig had urgently visited Ford at his office in the Executive Office Building to tell him that the president planned to step down, and he had presented Ford a handwritten list, prepared by Nixon's special Watergate counsel, Fred Buzhardt, of "permutations for the option of resignation"—ways that Nixon could relinquish the presidency yet avoid indictment.
One of them was that, as Ford put it, "Nixon could agree to leave in return for an agreement that the new president—Gerald Ford—would pardon him. Outraged that Ford hadn't thrown Haig out of his office—there was no way a Ford administration would survive the idea that he had ascended to the presidency as part of a deal—Hartmann and Ford aide Jack Marsh had insisted that Ford phone Haig the next morning to state unambiguously, for the record, and in front of witnesses, that Ford had made no commitments of any kind.
But the question of Nixon's legal status would not go away. And despite all the parties who had a stake in the outcome, Gerald R. Ford ultimately arrived at the answer very much on his own. Ford was determined to put Watergate in the past, but he was forced into the fray on his second day in office. Nixon, like every president before him, had laid claim to all his White House tapes and files— reels and 46 million pieces of paper.
Lawyers in the special prosecutor's office—and defense attorneys in the Watergate coverup trial—believed that those records had to be available to them. After a Ford adviser discovered that some files had already been shipped to Nixon's California estate, the new president ordered that the remainder be kept in White House custody until their legal status could be sorted out.
From there, Watergate entanglements multiplied. Ford, despite his solid support for the Vietnam War, believed that the approximately 50, draft resisters and deserters who had left the country were also war victims. While the VFW conventioneers greeted the announcement with stony silence, draft exiles in Canada—and, soon enough, others—voiced their suspicion that it was intended as a trade-off for a Nixon pardon.
Three days later, the House Judiciary Committee released its final report on Nixon's impeachment. The page document stated unanimously that there was "clear and convincing evidence" that the former president had "condoned, encouraged The House approved the report by a vote of to 3. Philip Lacovara, Jaworski's counselor in the special prosecutor's office—a Goldwater conservative in a regiment of liberals—was adamant that his boss could not forgo a prosecution, but arguments for a pardon were being made.
Ford's nominee for vice president, Nelson Rockefeller, proclaimed that Nixon had suffered enough, and Nixon lawyer Herbert "Jack" Miller argued that his client could not receive a fair trial in the United States. In a memo to Ford, Nixon's old friend Leonard Garment, still the White House counsel, suggested that Nixon's mental and physical condition couldn't withstand the continued threat of criminal prosecutions and implied that, unless Nixon was pardoned, he might commit suicide.
Garment stayed up through the night to write his memo, delivering it on Wednesday, August Unless Ford acted, he wrote, "The national mood of conciliation will diminish; pressure from different sources At p. Entering briskly, eyes ahead, Ford strode to the lectern, appearing relaxed and comfortable. My wife, Betty, had scheduled her press conference for the same day. Obviously, I had scheduled my press conference for this occasion.
So, Betty's was postponed. Ford's eyes scanned the room. President," Thomas asked, "aside from the special prosecutor's role, do you agree with the [American] Bar Association that the law applies equally to all men, or do you agree with Governor Rockefeller that former President Nixon should have immunity from prosecution, and specifically, would you use your pardon authority, if necessary?
I subscribe to that point of view. But let me add, in the last ten days or two weeks I have asked for prayers for guidance on this very important point.
There have been no charges made, there has been no action by the courts, there has been no action by any jury, and until any legal process has been taken, I think it is unwise and untimely for me to make any commitment. However, as a result of the pardon, Nixon would never be held accountable for activity widely thought to be criminal. In his speech announcing the pardon, Ford referred both to the health crisis of Nixon as well as his own personal constitutional duty to ensure domestic tranquility.
At the time, it was impossible for Ford to realize that Nixon would eventually recover and live for twenty more years. The public vehemently disagreed. Toggle navigation. Ford appeared in front of a House judiciary committee in October to explain the pardon.
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