The trust the American people had in him was severely and rapidly tarnished by his pardon of Nixon.Nonetheless, many grant in hindsight that he had respectably discharged with considerable dignity a great responsibility that he had not sought.…
This status plus Ford's pardon of Nixon caused politicians in both major parties to view Ford as vulnerable.Ronald Reagan led the conservative wing of the party in condemning Ford's foreign policy in Vietnam, Eastern Europe and Panama.…
Ford, although personally unconnected with Watergate, was seen by many as too close to the discredited Nixon administration, especially after he granted Nixon a presidential pardon for any crimes he might have committed during his term of office.Ford's pardon of Nixon caused his popularity, as measured by public-opinion polls, to plummet.Ford's refusal to explain his reasons for pardoning Nixon publicly (he would do so in his memoirs several years later), also hurt his image.…
Presidents since Franklin D. Roosevelt had recorded many of their conversations, but after Watergate, this practice purportedly ended.Ford's pardon of Nixon played a major role in his defeat in the 1976 presidential election against Jimmy Carter.…
Rather than face impeachment by the House of Representatives and a possible conviction by the Senate, he resigned, effective August 9, 1974.His successor, Gerald R. Ford, a moderate Republican, issued a preemptive pardon of Nixon, ending the investigations of him.Aware that he had not been elected to either the office of president or vice-president, Gerald Ford asked the American people to give him their support, saying "Our long national nightmare is over."…
In presenting the award to Ford, Senator Ted Kennedy said that he had initially been opposed to the pardon of Nixon, but later stated that history had proved Ford to have made the correct decision.
The sordid Watergate scandal soon destroyed the Nixon presidency, giving the Democrats a flicker of hope.With Gerald Ford's pardon of Nixon soon after his resignation in 1974, the Democrats used the "corruption" issue to make major gains in the off-year elections.In 1976, mistrust of the administration, complicated by a combination of economic recession and inflation, sometimes called stagflation, led to Ford's defeat by Jimmy Carter, a former Governor of Georgia.…
Nixon resigned in August 1974 due to the Watergate scandal.McGovern said President Gerald R. Ford's subsequent September 1974 pardon of Nixon was difficult to understand given that Nixon's subordinates were going to prison.McGovern displayed the political resiliency he had shown in the past.…
William Safire's article written during this time, Carter's Broken Lance, earned a Pulitzer Prize in 1978.It was an embarrassment for Carter's administration, particularly as it occurred soon after President Nixon's Watergate scandal and President Ford's pardon of Nixon just before he could be impeached.To insure there was no hint of similar impropriety in the Carter administration, Lance resigned his position.…
Ford was thus the only sitting President who had never been previously elected to national office.Saddled with a poor economy, the fall of South Vietnam, and paying a heavy political price for his pardon of Nixon, Ford first faced serious opposition from within his own party, when he was challenged for the Republican Party's nomination by former California governor Ronald Reagan.The race was so close that Ford was not able to secure the nomination until the Party Convention.…
However, authors Len Colodny and Robert Gettlin were highly critical of much of Haig's behind-the-scenes work as Nixon's chief of staff in their 1991 book Silent Coup: The Removal of a President.They described several episodes where Haig misled the president and others, particularly those surrounding the court battles over Nixon's White House tape recordings, and Ford's eventual pardon of Nixon in September 1974.…
The event brought some enthusiasm to an American populace that was feeling cynical and disillusioned from Vietnam, Watergate, and economic difficulties.Ford's pardon of Nixon just before the 1974 midterm elections was not well received, and the Democrats made major gains, bringing to power a generation of young liberal activists, many of them suspicious of the military and the CIA.The Watergate scandal was still fresh in the voters' minds when former Georgia Governor Jimmy Carter, a Washington, DC outsider known for his integrity, prevailed over nationally better-known politicians in the Democratic Party Presidential primaries in 1976.…
President Gerald Ford had squandered his early popularity with an unconditional pardon of Nixon and his perceived mishandling of the recession, and by late 1975 had slumped badly in national polls.Due to the absence of any clear front-runner for the nomination and a political climate that seemed tilted heavily in their party's favor, a record number of Democrats competed for their party's presidential nomination in 1976.…
During his career, he sponsored numerous reforms of food and drug safety and environmental law; he was the chief sponsor of the 1970 Illinois Environmental Protection Act and the Illinois Endangered Species Act.In 1974, Burditt ran against Adlai Stevenson III for the US Senate, but lost due to a nationwide wave of anti-Republican sentiment following the Ford pardon of Nixon.He did not run for office again after this, although he remained active behind the scenes.…
But on the issues, Packwood and Roberts shared many positions, such as on abortion, military spending, and the environment.Moreover, Packwood had distanced himself from Watergate, calling for Nixon's impeachment and denouncing Gerald Ford's pardon of Nixon.Roberts was also at a financial disadvantage, having entered the race late and facing debt from her failed gubernatorial run; Packwood was able to use money he had raised for a primary challenge that never materialized, and led in most polls by a double-digit margin.…
Criminal prosecution was still a possibility both on the Federal and State level.Nixon was succeeded by Vice President Gerald Ford as President, who on September 8, 1974, issued a full and unconditional pardon of Nixon, immunizing him from prosecution for any crimes he had "committed or may have committed or taken part in" as president.In a televised broadcast to the nation, Ford explained that he felt the pardon was in the best interest of the country.…
These elections, as part of the usual pattern of the Six-year itch, were held in the wake of the Watergate scandal, Richard M. Nixon's resignation from the presidency, and Gerald Ford's subsequent pardon of Nixon.These circumstances hurt the Republicans, and they lost seats in both houses of Congress.…
The U.S. Senate elections of 1974 were held in the wake of the Watergate scandal, Richard M. Nixon's resignation from the presidency, and Gerald Ford's subsequent pardon of Nixon.Economic issues, specifically inflation and stagnation, were also a factor that contributed to the Republican losses.…
On November 12, 1999, Ziegler was due to participate by telephone in a television panel discussion that included several former Nixon and Ford aides, including his successor as White House Press Secretary, Jerald terHorst, who resigned in protest at President Ford's pardon of Nixon.
