By Mark Rhoads
Former President Gerald Ford died last night at 93. Everyone will weigh in now on his legacy which includes years as Republican leader of the U.S. House and as president from August 1974 to January 1977. He was a decent and honorable man who had a mostly conservative voting record but who nevertheless had little understanding of conservative political philosophy.
The "Ev and Charlie Show" as reporters once called the news conferences of Senate GOP leader Sen. Everett M. Dirksen (R-Ill.) and Rep. Charles Halleck (R-Ind.) became the "Ev and Gerry Show" after Mr. Ford became GOP leader of the House in January 1965 until Dirksen's death in September 1969. Dirksen and Ford worked well together. If Ford lacked boldness in those years, his defenders would say it was because he had very few troops--fewer than 144 House Republicans to rely on. He remained GOP leader in the House after Everett died until President Nixon needed him to serve as a vice presidential replacement for Spiro Agnew.
Nixon knew that Ford could get a quick confirmation from the Senate. Mr. Ford had a reasonably conservative voting record in his years as a member of the House but he was far from a "movement conservative" as the term came into use after Sen. Barry Goldwater's campaign in 1964. When he was president from August 1974 to January 1977, Ford made several appointments and policy moves that made conservatives very nervous, including the nomination of New York Gov. Nelson Rockefeller as Vice President which in turn assured the challenge from Ronald Reagan in 1976.
Gerald Ford walked a line between liberals and conservatives in the Republican Party. His own voting record for his Grand Rapids, Michigan district was appropriately conservative. But his manuevers as GOP leader tended to marginalize House Republicans until they won back 47 House seats in 1966. People forget why Gerald Ford became unpopular with conservatives. One big reason was a series of liberal appointments including the appointment of the great anti-conservative of the eastern GOP, Nelson Rockefeller as Vice President in 1974. That appointment by itself almost assured that Gov. Ronald Reagan would challenge Ford for President in 1976. Reagan had a bad start and still came to the convention only 60 delegate votes short of unseating an incumbent president.
Gerald Ford did not really understand philosophy or the conservative movement that Barry Goldwater had launched in 1964. He often did not govern as a conservative. His "Whip Inflation Now" or WIN amounted to pointless posturing that did nothing real to restrain government spending. Ford did promote Dick Cheney as his chief of staff and Don Rumsfeld as his Secretary of Defense and Ambassador to NATO. Betty Ford campaigned for states to ratify the Equal Rights Amendment so that made it difficult for Ford to gain points with social conservatives.
But for all of his indifference to any coherent political philosophy, many conservatives believed that Gerald Ford was a person with honorable motives and honest intentions. He chose Bob Dole as his running mate in 1976 and that said a lot about his desire to be a "middle of the road" Republican.
Mr. Ford risked American lives on a rescue of the Mayquez crew only a few months after American troops had pulled out of Viet Nam. The rescue was successful and showed his courage and determination to protect Americans in military service.
President Ford was in a very weak political position even before he pardoned Richard Nixon. He had to rely too heavily on Henry Kissinger as his Secretary of State and Kissinger then as now knows very little about conservative views on foreign policy. He also played it safe when he appointed John Paul Stevens of Illinois to the Supreme Court in 1975 and over time Stevens became one of the most liberal members of the court.
President Ford and Gov. Jimmy Carter certainly held among the most inarticulate debates in the history of the country.
Mr. Ford was a decent man who did not generate very many original ideas. If he had won a term in his own right in 1976, he might have governed more in the center and he certainly had conservative advisers. But what little mark he could make in 1974 and 1975 was enough to make conservatives in the Republican Party worry about his core beliefs.
