I've come to accept Ford's reasons for pardoning Nixon

I know this will probably be an unpopular view on DU, and for years I felt that Nixon should have been tried and convicted before a pardon was even considered. But in retrospect I think that Gerald Ford did the correct thing on September 8, 1974 when he pardoned Richard Nixon. Ford certainly didn't do it for political reasons. His approval rating fell from 71% to 49%--the single biggest drop in Gallup history. The Republican party lost more than 30 seats in Congress that November, and many analysts believe that the pardon was the deciding factor in Ford's narrow defeat in 1976.

Ford was convinced that as long as Nixon was a national obsession that the country could never get on with the very real work that had to be done. Inflation was high. There was a recession with high unemployment. The country was still struggling with Vietnam. There were gas shortages and high prices at the pumps. Ford was spending, he estimated, 30 percent of his time dealing with problems related to Nixon and his papers. Ford had said in his inaugural address, "Our long national nightmare is over..." but clearly it wasn't not until the Nixon problem was resolved. Nixon's lawyers were going to drag it out in the legal system for years. In his speech announcing the pardon Ford said, "Nixon is an American tragedy in which we all have played a part. It could go on and on and on, or someone must write the end to it. I have concluded that only I can do that, and If I can I must."

Compassion also played a part in Ford's decision. People may not remember it, but Nixon was a very sick man following his resignation. In October, 1974 he was hospitalized for weeks and nearly died due to a blood clot which broke off and traveled to his lungs. He was depressed and people thought he might even be suicidal.

In the end Ford believed that Nixon's acceptance of the pardon was, finally, acknowledgement by Nixon of wrong doing. Of course Nixon never admitted more than "mistakes."

But over time even liberal historians such as Doris Kearns Goodwin and Arthur Schlesinger have acknowledged that the Nixon pardon was a selfless and courageous act by Ford and in the end the correct one. Nixon historian Stephen Ambrose, in 1974, was a long-haired University Professor who protested Ford's action and later came to accept it as "wise and courageous."

Even Jimmy Carter in the first sentence of his Inaugural address seemed to suggest that Ford had indeed done much to end the divisions in the country that Nixon had reaped, "For myself and for our country I'd like to thank my predecessor for all he did to heal our land," said Carter.

We never got closure on it and there was no accountability for his crimes.

:evilgrin:

throughout republican administrations to the current day

But it did convince the Republicans, and some of the minor Watergate warriors, that it was worth the risk to try it again. Because the punishments were light, and the prize so big.

So they looked around to see what got Dick: the media, the Congress, the judiciary. And they systematically set about removing those threats.

Are you planning to slap their wrists this time, too?

As for Nixon's health, if he'd had the honor to eat a bullet, that wouldn't have been a problem.

still unresolved today.

People often compare Nixon to Bush, but the comparison ends at their pettiness. Bush's misdeeds are far more all-encompassing than were Nixon's, whose Watergate crimes were the acts of a small, small man. Bush's actions are those of a religious fanatic.

I don't know how justice will be achieved in the case of Bush, but it will go far differently than it would have with Nixon, and the impeachment proceedings will be completely unlike those Clinton faced.

Scholars and and common folk alike will debate the cases of Nixon and Bush for decades. Centuries. Perhaps that's where the real healing happens.

--p!

books closed for the "good" of the world economy - Well, I think the world economy could have recovered better after a few years of upheaval back then, than it can after 8 years of BushInc that the closing of those books allowed.

Had Clinton allowed those papers to be made public, NO Bush would have been allowed near the White House ever again, and 9-11 would never have happened.

Ford was one of the more decent people in the Party. Edit to add--although the pardon didn't have the result he wanted, I think his intentions were good.

And that is political damage control. He did this on the Warren Commission, and that is what he did with the Nixon pardon. And in both instances his clean up work proved more damaging in the long run for all of us.

Just think what would have happened if we had got to the bottom of the Kennedy assasination. Hell, Vietnam might have ended much earlier than what it did. Hell, Nixon might not have even gotten into office.

As far as pardoning Nixon, Ford was insuring that the political machinery behind Nixon didn't suffer any damage, or even much exposure to the light of day, and that they were free to persue their dirty tricks when Reagan, Bush I and Bush II came around. If we had had a thorough probing of the Watergate mess, we might very well not be sitting here today bitching about the Bush administration, since it was Poppy, among a few select others, who was doing the dirty work for the 'Pugs at the time, both in the CIA and out.

I can never forgive Ford for his role in these matters, because in both instances he thwarted justice, and Lord have we as a country paid the price for that.

in history and led the court in expanding human rights and civil liberties allowed his name to be used as a white-wash?

and there was a trial if we would have Cheney and Rumsfeld in the positions they are in today? I've also been told, don't have a source, that Hale Boggs was Garrison's source. If this is true, given he was on the commission, it points to the truth not being told. Course we can't ask him cause he died in one of those pesky plane crashes.

in the Iran/Contra mess?

Impeachment may have put paid to many of the egregious acts which have followed.

Richard Nixon and Henry Kissinger approved and oversaw the illegal bombings of villages in Southeast Asia that resulted in the murder of poor Indo-Chinese peasants, men, women and children.

There are millions of poor men and women locked away in jails and prisons in the United States for petty crimes such as having a bag of weed, hotwiring a car and joyriding and stealing a pizza.

I think that Richard Nixon got away with murder and Gerald Ford helped him. He should not have pardoned him. It establishes two standards in a nation that prides itself for having only one: a standard for the poor & weak and another standard for the rich & powerful.

The pardoning of Richard Nixon removes the blindfold of justice.

Worse, the pardoning of Richard Nixon established precedent for pardoning Bush after he leaves office.

... after all this humility by all concerned about the "good of the country," some of the recently-released Nixon tapes strongly suggest that Ford only got the job of VP after Nixon was assured that Ford would pardon him if and when the time came for that. And, people forget that Ford essentially lied to Congress under oath about that quid pro quo when he was questioned on the reasons for the pardon.

Ford was one of the most right-wing people Congress has ever seen. He and Nixon gave us Rumsfeld and Cheney, thank you very much.

Had Nixon actually been impeached, removed from office, tried and convicted for his crimes--including war crimes (illegally bombing Cambodia)--no future president would have attempted the sort of broad expansion of Executive power and illegal activity Nixon sought to achieve. We might have been spared Iran-Contra, the ever-increasing use of black ops around the world by the President and the abuses of the first and second administrations of Bush the Younger.

That's the flip side. What you describe as good for the country has actually been our undoing as a nation, to my mind. It helped encourage an office of President with power all out of proportion to what the Constitution intended.

Cheers.

it was a criminal act to pardon someone and cheat the public of the disclosure that comes from a public trial, talk abt the ultimate cover-up, we wanted & needed to know the full truth of nixon's actions not sometime when doris kearns goodwin gets around to pronouncing but we needed to know it THEN when it happened & still mattered

that said, ford at least until recently was able to make a very articulate argument for his actions & i don't think he was ill-meaning, i think he is and was a sincere man, just a less-than-average in intelligence man whose kind heart and soft brain was taken advantage of, someone had to give him this stupid idea to pardon someone who had not been convicted of any crime, it is completely illogical & sets a horrible precedent for a free nation

of course we do not have a free nation w. full public disclosure any more, ford's pardon of nixon sadly indeed being one of the reasons, cover-up has become the accepted way of GOP doing business, if you were outraged by iran/contra you were considered a little kooky & that was way way way beyond watergate

a person can be a nice guy & a bad leader, all GOP aren't automatically evil bastards like reagan/bush, some think they are actually helping people, ford made a mistake & we all have to live w. it but no use hounding an old man over what can't be changed

as far as carter, he is naturally a gracious person, what good would come of bad-mouthing ford in an inaugural address, he was just being courteous

... the same criminal 'cabal' obviously regarded it as a "Get Out Of Jail Free" card for all future offenses - a Carte Blanche for Iran/Contra, Iraq-I, and now the most extreme corruption within the Executive Branch in the history of the country.

If the GOPigs had cleaned their own house and, instead of merely marketing themselves hypocritically, actually became a party of "honor" and "dignity" ... I could fulsomely agree that Ford did the right thing. Sadly, I cannot.

Preferably in a court in Geneva for his and his toadies war crimes. I'm still waiting to see Kissinger in the dock.

on his way out of the WH? Supposedly, Tricky Dick took a lot of things with him when he left - illegally. Ford's blanket pardon "for all crimes committed against the US" allowed Nixon to pilfer without consequence.

Anybody else remember this? Probably an urban legend.

...it also ended the last non-political method for holding presidents accountable for their illegal activities in office.

The only way to hold a president accountable now is impeachment. The precedent to forgive previous office-holders has been established.