The Ford File and Its Surprises

By Hugh Sidey

Twenty-five years ago last Sunday night, there were thousands of people in Lafayette Park, eager witnesses to the final act of Richard Nixon's tortured presidency. Many of them were weeping, others cheering. Dan Rather was sitting on a chair, under spotlights, in mordant tones announcing the end of a political world.

Most others on that Aug. 8, 1974, were searching the facade of the nearby Old Executive Office Building and wondering behind which of the lighted windows sat Vice President Gerald Ford, who the next day would become the most powerful man in the world, a man who last week thought back and said, "I never asked for it. I never wanted it. But I never was afraid of it."

Ford laughed when he talked about his assumption of power. He and his wife Betty had been worrying about furniture and drapes for the new Vice President's residence up on Observatory Hill. Ford knew a political fire storm was on the way. But he kept hearing whispers from others about Nixon's ambivalence: fight, don't fight, hang in, resign. "I was 90% certain that sooner or later he had to resign," recalled Ford. "I was certain the die was cast for impeachment. If Nixon had decided to fight the House and the Senate, it would have been a terrible thing for the country."

Nixon called a Cabinet meeting for that Tuesday, Aug. 6. Ford felt that the President was in fantasyland. There were demonstrators along Pennsylvania Avenue. The headlines screamed for Nixon's resignation. Nixon wanted to talk about inflation and the U.S. economy. Ford stared across the Cabinet table in wonder at this odd tableau. "The 'smoking gun' tape was out--the country was up in arms about it," recounted Ford. "Nixon was just plain out of touch, and his mind off there somewhere.

"That is when I read a statement that I could no longer defend the Administration or participate on the President's behalf," recalled Ford. "I looked over at Nixon, and he was shocked. I wasn't sure what would happen. Then the strangest thing of all took place. Instead of blowing up or criticizing me, Nixon complimented me for taking exactly the right position. I would not say he was mentally incompetent then, but he was strained emotionally."

Ford has watched with interest over these 25 years as the books, movies, plays and television programs have rolled forth about Watergate and Nixon, the good, the bad and the unspeakable. "The people who do these things are exploiting the worst part of Nixon's personality," says Ford. "It is unfair. He had many achievements." The latest piece of Nixonmania is Dick, a movie of the absurd in which two teenage girls are Deep Throat, the long-dead Nixon dog Checkers is transposed to the White House and detests his President, G. Gordon Liddy looks like a yuppie Groucho Marx, and Pat Nixon snores like a truckdriver.

Most real teenagers probably think "Tricky Dick" is a hip-hop band. Middle-agers weaned on Oliver Stone won't find Nixon nearly malevolent enough. But those of us who remember Watergate will get many twinges seeing the White House and the presidency once again the setting for wretched comedy. In the world of black humor, however, the true Watergate story was far more hilarious.

Ford has said very little over the years about the Nixon tapes that thrust him into the presidency. But there is a part of them that still upsets him. "One of the most disappointing things about Nixon was that language he used as revealed in the tapes," recalled Ford. "I knew Dick Nixon for 25 years, and I never heard him use that kind of language, not in conversations with me. I was so shocked by it that I asked Henry Kissinger if he had ever experienced Nixon using such foul language. He hadn't either. That opened up a bad side of Dick Nixon. That was very disappointing."

Ford is resigned to history's continuing struggle to sort out the Watergate tangle, including the shadow that follows him over his pardon of Nixon. Few people who know Ford believe he is hiding a great secret about that decision, or about anything else. He is a stranger to guile. Just last week he was chuckling again over the most famous line he uttered as President: "My fellow Americans, our long national nightmare is over." It was not his line, and he almost rejected it.

"When I felt it was pretty certain Nixon was going to resign, I asked my aide Bob Hartman to write a speech for my swearing-in," said Ford. "He was a late-night operator, and he brought me a draft the morning before. I wasn't sure I wanted the 'nightmare' line in the speech. Bob blew up. He stamped toward the door and said, 'To hell with it. If that line is not in the speech, I'm quitting.' I read the speech over a few more times, and I got to like that line better. So I used it in the speech. And that is the line that everybody remembers."