As the pundits have eulogized former Pres. Gerald Ford over the past few days, a new version of the conventional wisdom about his pardon of his predecessor, Richard Nixon, has emerged. In the newly revised history, Ford pardoned Nixon in order to spare the nation the agony of witnessing a former president on trial. However, I agree with Margie Burns that his motives were a bit more basic:
[The pardon] did not spare the nation; it spared Richard M. Nixon. The nation had not undergone a long nightmare with Nixon’s resignation; Nixon had. The nation had not endured a virtual state of siege with Nixon’s attempt to spy on and to steal from the opposition and then to stonewall investigation into his actions (assisted by then-head of the Republican National Committee George H. W. Bush); Nixon had. And with all due respect, most of the graybeards on television probably know that. If they don’t, they’re not qualified to be either reporters or commentators. Anyone who recollects the Seventies as being a period when public adoration of Dick Nixon was at its peak -– such that seeing him answer questions about Watergate would have been simply unbearable -– is remembering wrong.
Margie Burns is being generous. Ford may have been motivated to help Nixon, with whom he had a social relationship. But Ford’s primary objective in pardoning Nixon was to prevent the GOP from entering the 1976 election cycle with the trials of a Republican ex-president and his aides dominating the headlines.
Ford knew that the putting Nixon on trial in 1975 could have easily spread Watergate’s cancer on the presidency into the GOP body politic at the same time that the 1976 presidential campaign was ramping up. Nixon’s secret Oval Office tapes would be played in open court, and the crimes of his staffers would be exposed in the worst possible light. The Republican Party could not afford this exposure, so, as its leader, Pres. Ford did what had to be done.
He paid a heavy price for the pardon. Within a month, Ford’s popularity plummeted over 25 points. Less than two years later, he lost the presidency to Jimmy Carter.
Ford was a genuinely decent guy — a World War II veteran who served in the House for 25 years before being named Nixon’s vice president. For the pardon of Richard Nixon, the Republican Party owes him everything, and the nation owes him nothing.
I will be happy when once again we can say “The long, national nightmare is over”.
Nice to see that someone else remembers that there was a Bush involved in the national crime that was Watergate.
Ever since the founding of the National Security state with its attendant unconstitutional moves by insiders there has been a Bush involved.
crimes against the nation&humanity-rule of law my ass……
Exactly!
I was in my 30s during Watergate.
There was no “constitutional crisis”. Our constitution explicitly provides for impeachment and trial for presidential felons.
Nixon escaped impeachment by resigning his office one jump ahead of the posse. And I am quite sure that when he did resign, the pardon “fix” was already in.
I think it was very likely that he would have been arraigned and tried on criminal charges, but Ford’s pardon made that impossible.
“Now, therefore, I, Gerald R. Ford, President of the United States, pursuant to the pardon power conferred upon me by Article II, Section 2, of the Constitution, have granted and by these presents do grant a full, free, and absolute pardon unto Richard Nixon for all offenses against the United States which he, Richard Nixon, has committed or may have committed or taken part in during the period from January 20, 1969 through August 9, 1974.”
Coincidentally (yeah, right) August 9 was the effective date of Nixon’s resignation.
“ALL OFFENSES which he…has committed or MAY HAVE committed or taken part in…”
A blanket “get out of jail free” card if there ever was one.
Thus the Republican party was not made to suffer through the trial and probable conviction of their party’s recent leader.
Who can say what path our nation’s politics might have taken had justice been allowed to run its course?
Would George W. Bush be number 43?
Who knows?
I was a kid working full time and going to college part time 6-7 blocks from Nixons Imperial Whitehouse in laye 60’s early 70’s. It was like mariial law in DC in those days for anyone that even looked like a potiential protestor.
This Bushco administration is a Grand Monument to GOP Stupidity, Greed and Criminality and a lot worse.
This IS still America and WE, the People should Face the plain Truth and the Facts. The Bush Criminals SHOULD be Indicted, Impeached and Imprisioned ASAP! Have WE as American citizens become so afraid, apathetic and politically paralysed that we CAN’T defend America from these GOP Criminals, Thugs and Hoodlums ?
If Ford’s comments about having to spend 4-6 hours a day dealing with “le Affaire Nixon” are accurate, I can understand why he would have thought a pardon best for the country.
Unfortunately, he thought wrongly. A small task force (4-5 people), headed by a respected and honest person (there were even Republicans then who would have qualified) could have served as the clearing house for requests/sub poenas, etc. concerning Nixon’s. Ford could have been briefed daily in a very short period and still spent the majority of his time on other problems.
Anyone who advised Ford to issue the pardon without thinking of ways to permit justice to be had should be held as accountable as Mr. Ford.
Anyone ever wonder what relationship our current p-residential behavior has to the Watergate fiasco? Surely had Nixon gotten what he deserved, others might have thought twice before wiping their a _ _ es with the Constitution…it IS only a ‘_od damned piece of paper,’ after all!!?? Isn’t it?
Gerald R. Ford was a decent man with a temporary morality lapse when HIS party’s a _ _ was on the line!
When will politicians realize that it’s the COUNTRY they represent, NOT their party?
The great irony and injustice is the pardon to Nixon and the refusal of our resident nit-wit to pardon our two Border Patrol Agents.
Gerald Ford was a moral coward who toed the Republican Party line right up until he died. God forgive him for that – he could have and should have spoken out, but was too cowardly to do so.
He put his loyalty to the Republican Party before the lives of American men and women, and for that, in my eyes, he is a contemptible coward.
Anyone who doubts that Gerald Ford pardoned Richard Nixon for any reason except pure politics to save the GOP has surely consumed massive amounts of Kool Aid. Massey Lambard hits it squarely on the head by saying that there was no constitutional crisis; there was only constitutional functionality exactly as the founders provided. Nixon only resigned after it had become apparent that the had no support in Congress and that only came about because of the the committee investigating got the facts out to the public and the crimes of the Nixon administration were there for all to see. We can only hope that the Congressional investigations of this administration will be half as thorough as the Watergate committee for this adminstrations crimes make Watergate look like errant juvenile missteps.
The garbage that the American public is better served when spared knowing the truth defies logic. How are we a better society for not demanding that those in power be accountable for whatever crimes they commit? How do we benefit when the rule of law does not apply to the ruling elite? How are we strengthened when we see justice denied? The rubbish that we are so fragile that we can’t bear to know the truth has created a society living as illusion. Starting with the whitewash Warren Commission (which Gerald Ford was part of, incidently) through Watergate and Iran-Contra the mantra from those in power has been to ‘spare the American people the pain of seeing those elected officals brought to justice’. Excuse me, but does it ever occur to them that witnessing those who perpetrate crimes against this entire society going entirely scot free doesn’t harm us? It doesn’t make us cynical? It doesn’t undermine our conception of a fair and just America?