by Bill Shelton

Criticisms of what were actually Gerald Ford‚Äôs strengths, and praise for his one great error have now died down.  In this relative silence, I‚Äôm going to tell you my own opinion, which I‚Äôm guessing differs from the eulogies you have heard.

On balance, Gerald Ford may be the best president in my lifetime.  I say, ‚Äúon balance,‚Äù because, were it not for Lyndon Johnson‚Äôs Vietnam disaster, he would be in the running for one of the presidential greats. 

Gerald Ford’s honest and decent presidency is distinguished by how little damage it did. He did send the Marines to rescue Mayaguez crew members just as they were being released, but this incident was minor in comparison to disastrously stupid military adventures pursued by Presidents Truman through George W. Bush.

This was remarkable, given the character of Ford‚Äôs advisers.  Insensate warmongers like Dick Cheney, Donald Rumsfeld, and Henry Kissinger surrounded him.  Unlike our current president, he kept his own council.

Just as Cheney, Rumsfeld, and Paul Wolfowitz would later set up a unit within Bush‚Äôs Defense Department to manufacture fraudulent evidence of Iraqi threats, they created ‚ÄúTeam B‚Äù in Ford‚Äôs Defense Department to manufacture fraudulent evidence of Soviet military strength. CIA analysts assessed the Team B Report as ‚Äúcomplete fiction.‚Äù  CIA Director George H.W. Bush said that Team B, ‚Äúset in motion a process that lends itself to manipulation for purposes other than estimative accuracy.‚Äù 

Sound familiar? Two and half years ago, Ford told Bob Woodward that he would not have invaded Iraq, despite Cheney‚Äôs ‚Äúfever‚Äù to do so. Ford refused to be stampeded by Rumsfeld and Cheney.  He entered into the Helsinki Accords, holding the Soviet Union to human rights standards for the first time and creating the framework for Human Rights Watch.  He signed the SALT II treaty to reduce production of nuclear weapons.

Rumsfeld very much wanted to be Ford‚Äôs vice presidential candidate, and ultimately, president.  George Bush and Nelson Rockefeller were leading contenders.  Rumsfeld and Cheney persuaded Ford to consign Bush to CIA and dump Rockefeller, but Ford refused to crown Rumsfeld.  He later said that squeezing out Rockefeller was, ‚Äúthe most cowardly thing that I‚Äôve ever done.‚Äù

If Ford had not pardoned Nixon, or if he had kept Rockefeller and carried New York State, he would have been elected president in 1976.  His (accurate) perception of Ronald Reagan as simplistic, dogmatic, lazy, and contemptuous of the facts also caused him to take less seriously that year‚Äôs crippling primary challenge by Reagan.

Despite my love for everyone‚Äôs favorite ex-president, Jimmy Carter, I think that if Ford had been elected, we‚Äôd be living in a better and safer world.  Ford would not have pursued Carter‚Äôs adventure in Afghanistan, which ultimately empowered our worst present-day global enemies.  He would not have funded genocide in Central America.

Carter‚Äôs ‚Äúzero-based budgeting‚Äù snake oil offered the illusion of fiscal conservatism while paving the way for the Democratic Leadership Council.  Ford‚Äôs attempts at sober fiscal management were just as genuine.  But social spending as a percentage of the budget peaked during his tenure, even though he followed our last liberal president, Richard Nixon.

Most importantly, Ford‚Äôs election would have prevented the subsequent election of Ronald Reagan.  We now know, and Reagan knew during his presidency, that the Soviet Union and its military were disintegrating.  Their implosion was only a matter of time.  Yet Reagan tripled the debt that the Republic had taken two centuries to accumulate (as a percentage of GDP, national debt increased by 62 percent).  He engorged military spending while dismantling the social safety net and leaving the U.S. more vulnerable to non-nuclear military threats. And I believe that Reagan‚Äôs ideological disregard for the truth was the parent of the radical mutation that is the Bush II presidency.

Ford‚Äôs greatest error was to pardon Richard Nixon, and I believe that eulogies stating that this helped heal the nation are sentimental nonsense.  Had Nixon been fairly prosecuted, it is less likely that Reagan would have defied Congress with his illegal sale of arms to Iran to fund Contra mass killers. 

One of the points on which Nixon was impeached was his illegal war in Cambodia.  Would Bush‚Äôs administration have manipulated evidence to facilitate the Iraq invasion?  Would his Congress have put U.S. governance up for sale?

Rather than healing the nation, the pardon helped establish conditions that have produced our nation’s most hateful and divisive political culture in 130 years, a culture in which Gerald Ford’s bald honesty and amiable goodwill are rare indeed.