Gerald Rudolph Ford, Jr., nacido con el nombre de Leslie Lynch King, Jr. , fue el trigésimo octavo presidente de los Estados Unidos, que ejerció el cargo desde el 9 de agosto de 1974 hasta el 20 de enero de 1977, tras la renuncia de Richard Nixon por el escándalo Watergate.
Anteriormente había desempeñado el cargo de vicepresidente del país, durante ocho meses, tras la renuncia de Spiro Agnew. Fue el primero en ser elegido según el procedimiento establecido en la Vigesimoquinta Enmienda a la Constitución de Estados Unidos y al asumir la presidencia, se convirtió también en la primera y hasta ahora única persona que ha ejercido tanto la vicepresidencia como la presidencia de Estados Unidos, sin haber sido elegida por el Colegio Electoral. Fue miembro del Partido Republicano.
Durante su presidencia finalizó la Guerra de Vietnam y se firmaron los Acuerdos de Helsinki. En cuanto a política interna, Ford se encontró ante el peor panorama económico desde la Gran Depresión de 1929: durante sus años en la presidencia el país entró en recesión y hubo una creciente inflación.[1] Una de sus decisiones más polémicas fue dar el indulto al presidente Richard Nixon, implicado en el llamado Escándalo Watergate. En 1976 Ford derrotaría a Ronald Reagan en la nominación del Partido Republicano, pero perdería por un escaso margen ante el demócrata Jimmy Carter en las elecciones presidenciales de ese año.
Descrito a menudo como poco inteligente, su predecesor Lyndon B Johnson decía que Ford era «incapaz de mascar chicle y de caminar al mismo tiempo».[2] Luego de sus años en la presidencia Ford siguió participando en el Partido Republicano. Después de sufrir problemas de salud murió en su casa el 26 de diciembre de 2006, a los 93 años. Su mandato presidencial, que duró 895 días, es el más corto de entre los presidentes de los Estados Unidos que no murieron mientras ejercían el cargo.
Wikipedia
“There is no Soviet domination of Eastern Europe”
and there never will be under a Ford administration... The United States does not concede that those countries are under the domination of the Soviet Union.
Gaffe in the television debate with Jimmy Carter (6 October 1976)
1970s
1970s, Remarks on pardoning Nixon (1974)
Contexto: I have come to a decision which I felt I should tell you and all of my fellow American citizens, as soon as I was certain in my own mind and in my own conscience that it is the right thing to do.
I have learned already in this office that the difficult decisions always come to this desk. I must admit that many of them do not look at all the same as the hypothetical questions that I have answered freely and perhaps too fast on previous occasions.
My customary policy is to try and get all the facts and to consider the opinions of my countrymen and to take counsel with my most valued friends. But these seldom agree, and in the end, the decision is mine. To procrastinate, to agonize, and to wait for a more favorable turn of events that may never come or more compelling external pressures that may as well be wrong as right, is itself a decision of sorts and a weak and potentially dangerous course for a President to follow.
I have promised to uphold the Constitution, to do what is right as God gives me to see the right, and to do the very best that I can for America.
“We have come tardily to the tremendous task of cleaning up our environment.”
Earth Day address, Grand Rapids, Michigan (22 April 1970); published in Gerald R. Ford, Selected Speeches (1973) edited by Michael V. Doyle <!-- p. 84 -->
1970s
Contexto: We have come tardily to the tremendous task of cleaning up our environment. We should have moved with similar zeal at least a decade ago. But no purpose is served by post-mortems. With visionary zeal but the greatest realism, we must now address ourselves to the vast problems that confront us.
1970s, Proclamation 4417 (1976)
Variante: I call upon the American people to affirm with me this American Promise -- that we have learned from the tragedy of that long-ago experience forever to treasure liberty and justice for each individual American, and resolve that this kind of action shall never again be repeated.
Address to the 75th annual convention of the Veterans of Foreign Wars, Chicago, Illinois (19 August 1974)
1970s
Remarks about the Committee to Re-elect the President, as quoted in The New York Times (31 March 1974)
1970s
Address to a joint session of Congress (August 12, 1974); in Public Papers of the Presidents of the United States: Gerald R. Ford, 1974, pp. 6–7
1970s, Address to Congress (12 August 1974)
1970s, Proclamation 4417 (1976)
Quoted variant: History and experience tell us that moral progress comes not in comfortable and complacent times, but out of trial and confusion.
1970s, State of the Union Address (1975)
Dedication speech at the World Golf Hall of Fame, Pinehurst North Carolina, as quoted in The New York Times (12 September 1974)
1970s
1970s, Proclamation 4417 (1976)
“He's the smartest guy in Congress, but he insists on voting his conscience instead of party.”
Remarks about John B. Anderson in 1973, later quoted in an Anderson 1980 Presidential campaign ad http://www.livingroomcandidate.org/commercials/1980/john-anderson
1970s
Address at Yale Law School's 150th anniversary (25 April 1975) http://www.presidency.ucsb.edu/ws/index.php?pid=4869
1970s
Conference of the International Association of Police Chiefs http://www.mcjackie.com/cobb.html (24 September 1974).
1970s
“The length of one's days matters less than the love of one's family and friends.”
Statement just before becoming the longest lived U.S. President as quoted in "Ford eclipses Reagan as oldest ex-president" in USA Today (10 November 2006) http://www.usatoday.com/news/washington/2006-11-10-ford_x.htm
2000s
Speech to the International Eucharistic Conference, Philadelphia, Pennsylvania as quoted in the Los Angeles Herald-Examiner (13 August 1976)
1970s
As quoted by TIME magazine (28 January 1974)
1970s
Speech to the International Eucharistic Conference, Philadelphia, Pennsylvania as quoted in the Los Angeles Herald-Examiner (13 August 1976)
1970s
Presidential address to a joint session of Congress (12 August 1974)
Ford has also been quoted as having made a similar statement many years earlier, as a representative to the US Congress: "If the government is big enough to give you everything you want, it is big enough to take away everything you have."
"If Elected, I Promise…" : Stories and Gems of Wisdom by and About Politicians (1960) p. 193
Similar assertions have often been attributed to Barry Goldwater and Ronald Reagan. Some of the inspiration for such expressions may lie in "The Criminality of the State" by Albert Jay Nock in American Mercury (March 1939) where he stated: "You get the same order of criminality from any State to which you give power to exercise it; and whatever power you give the State to do things for you carries with it the equivalent power to do things to you."
1970s, Address to Congress (12 August 1974)
1970s, Address to Congress (12 August 1974)
1970s, Remarks on pardoning Nixon (1974)
1970s, Address to Congress (12 August 1974)
“I would hope that understanding and reconciliation are not limited to the 19th hole alone.”
Dedication speech at the World Golf Hall of Fame, Pinehurst North Carolina, as quoted in The New York Times (12 September 1974)
1970s
Remarks to the National Restaurant Association, in Chicago, Illinois (28 May 1978)
1970s
“Richard Nixon… was just offered $2 million by Schick to do a television commercial — for Gillette.”
Remarks at a "Humor and the Presidency Symposium", Ford Museum, Grand Rapids Michigan, as quoted in US magazine (3 November 1986)
1980s
1970s, First Presidential address (1974)
1970s, Proclamation 4417 (1976)
