Gerald Ford, 38th U.S. president, dead at 93

Posted:
Dec 26, 2006

Gerald R. Ford, the only unelected president in the history of the United States, died at his desert home at 6:45 p.m. Tuesday.

The 38th President was 93. He was the longest-living president in American history -- followed by Ronald Reagan, who also died at 93.

"My family joins me in sharing the difficult news that Gerald Ford, our beloved husband, father, grandfather and great-grandfather has passed away at 93 years of age," his wife Betty said in a short statement from her husband's office in Rancho Mirage, California. "His life was filled with love of God, his family and his country."

The statement did not give a cause of death. Ford had been living in Rancho Mirage, about 130 miles east of Los Angeles.

In January, Ford had battled pneumonia and was hospitalized for 12 days. He underwent two heart treatments, including an angioplasty, in August at the Mayo Clinic in Rochester, Minnesota.

Ford was lampooned in several animated cartoons. He was spoofed between 1997 and 2004 in episodes of The X-Presidents, a cartoon segment produced by Robert Smigel Production for NBC's Saturday Night Live.

Reel People, produced in 1976 by Britain's Chris James, showed him with several caricatured British parliamentarians, along with fellow U.S. presidents Nixon, Dwight D. Eisenhower, John F. Kennedy and Lyndon Johnson, and former U.S. vice-president Spiro Agnew.

The ex-president was one of a galaxy of celebrities -- ranging from Jodie Foster to O.J. Simpson -- to guest as themselves on "Mickey's 50," a November 19, 1978 episode of The Wonderful World of Disney.

His sometimes self-deprecating sense of humor also allowed him to make guest appearances on a 1976 Saturday Night Live episode and on "Carousel," a 1983 episode of Dynasty. And as the friend of a friend of presidents, he appeared on the TV specials Bob Hope: The First 90 Years (1993) and Bob Hope at 100 (2003).

Ford succeeded Richard M. Nixon following his scandal-ridden predecessor's resignation on August 9, 1974 in the wake of Watergate.

The second vice-president under Nixon, Ford assumed office minutes after Nixon flew off into exile. "Our long national nightmare is over," he said, calling for the healing of a nation.

But the next month, he granted Nixon a pardon for all crimes that his predecessor committed. Ford was unable to win election to the White House in 1976, losing to Jimmy Carter.

Also during his administration, the Vietnam War ended in defeat for the U.S. when Saigon fell to the Communists in April 1975. "Today, America can regain the sense of pride that existed before Vietnam. But it cannot be achieved by refighting a war that is finished as far as America is concerned," he said shortly before war's end.

Besides being America's first unelected president, he was its first unelected vice-president. Nixon chose him in November 1973 to replace Spiro Agnew, who resigned after pleading no contest to tax evasion charges.

In the White House for only 895 days, he was the target of assassination attempts on two separate trips to California in September 1975. Both of the assailants were women -- Lynette "Squeaky" Fromme and Sara Jane Moore. He escaped without injury both times.

He was born Leslie Lynch King Jr. in Omaha, Nebraska on July 14, 1913, but his parents separated two weeks afterward. His mother remarried when Ford was 2, and his name was changed to that of his stepfather's, Gerald Rudolph Ford. (He was the first United States president to be adopted; Bill Clinton was the second.)

Not until he was 17 did Ford learn that his stepfather was not his biological father.

A graduate from the University of Michigan and Yale University Law School, Ford played football while in college. After graduation, he was offered positions with both the Detroit Lions and the Green Bay Packers. However, he declined in favor of taking a coaching (boxing and football) job at Yale University.

He earned the rank of Eagle Scout in 1927 and served in the U.S. Navy during the Second World War.

A onetime male model (he appeared in ads for ski wear), Ford served in the House of Representatives from 1949 to 1973.

He was the last living member of the Warren Commission, appointed to the post in 1963 by Johnson to help investigate the assassination of Kennedy.

His wife Betty suffered from alcoholism but remained greatly admired when she was hospitalized in 1978. She admitted to having become addicted to drugs and alcohol that she took for painful arthritis and a pinched neck nerve.

Four years later, she founded the Betty Ford Clinic for alcohol and drug rehabilitation, located next to Eisenhower Medical Center in Rancho Mirage.

In recent years, Ford slowed down, though he looked much the same as he always had. In August 2000, he was hospitalized after suffering one or more small strokes while at the Republican National Convention in Philadelphia.

Three days after the September 11, 2001 attached, he joined former presidents Carter, George Bush and Clinton at a memorial service in Washington. The four men and their wives met again in June 2004 at a funeral service in Washington for Reagan.

However, in November 2004, Ford could not join the other former presidents at the dedication of the Clinton presidential library in Little Rock, Arkansas.

After three months out of the public eye, Ford was seen in public again on April 23 this year, when President George W. Bush was in town. He and First Lady Laura Bush visited the Fords at their home in Rancho Mirage.

Besides his wife, President Gerald Ford is surved by children Michael Gerald, born March 14, 1950; John Gardner, born March 16, 1952; Steven Meigs, born May 19, 1956; and Susan Elizabeth, born July 6, 1957.

Officials prepared tentative plans for Ford's body to lie in state at the Capitol Rotunda this weekend and expected a funeral service next Tuesday at National Cathedral.