A Brief History
On October 12, 1973, soon to be disgraced President Richard Nixon nominated US Representative Gerald Ford to replace Vice President Agnew who had resigned due to a criminal scandal. Ford became Vice President without having run for that office, and in August of 1974 he ascended to the presidency, the only US President not elected either President or Vice President.
Digging Deeper
Ford was born Leslie King, Jr., in Nebraska in 1913, but his parents divorced less than a year later, and Ford’s name was changed when his mother remarried. A graduate of the University of Michigan and Yale University, Ford served in Congress from 1949 to 1973.
Ford inherited a failing economy and the legacy of Nixon’s scandal and failed to get elected on his own merit in 1976. Ford served in the US Navy during World War II and had been a member of the infamous Warren Commission that investigated the murder of John Kennedy.
Question for students (and subscribers) to ponder: Who is your favorite US President?
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Historical Evidence
For more information, please see…
Ford, Gerald. A Time to Heal: The Autobiography of Gerald R. Ford. Harper & Row / Reader’s Digest, 1979.
Smith, Richard Norton. An Ordinary Man: The Surprising Life and Historic Presidency of Gerald R. Ford. Harper, 2023.
The featured image in this article, a photograph of President and Mrs. Richard M. Nixon with Representative and Mrs. Gerald R. Ford in the Blue Room following the nomination of Gerald Ford as the President’s choice to succeed Spiro T. Agnew as Vice President, is in the public domain in the United States because it is a work prepared by an officer or employee of the United States Government as part of that person’s official duties under the terms of Title 17, Chapter 1, Section 105 of the US Code.
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