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You know how people say that Gerald Ford did the right thing pardoning Nixon even though it probably cost him the election in 1976? Is that really accurate. I think Ford was in a position where he was damned if he did and damned if he didn't. Pardoning Nixon probably did cost Ford a few swing voters in the end, but if he hadn't done it, Nixon would have been further investigated, indicted, and gone on trial. The trial could have been going on or just concluded in November of 1976. Ford would be running against the backdrop of that trial. It could have been a slaughter for Republicans up and down the ticket. Ford very nearly won in the end against Carter. And the Republicans gained in Congress. I think things would have been a lot worse for Ford had he not done it. I actually think Ford's debate gaffe may have hurt him more in the end when he said, "There is no Soviet domination of Eastern Europe." In the end, a swing of 6,000 votes in Ohio and 15,000 votes in Wisconsin, Ford would have won. Ohio and Wisconsin, both big Rust Belt state with large Eastern European populations. I think that had he not made that mistake in the debate, Carter still would have won the popular vote, but it could have wound up like Florida in 2000. Any thoughts?
You know how people say that Gerald Ford did the right thing pardoning Nixon even though it probably cost him the election in 1976? Is that really accurate. I think Ford was in a position where he was damned if he did and damned if he didn't. Pardoning Nixon probably did cost Ford a few swing voters in the end, but if he hadn't done it, Nixon would have been further investigated, indicted, and gone on trial. The trial could have been going on or just concluded in November of 1976. Ford would be running against the backdrop of that trial. It could have been a slaughter for Republicans up and down the ticket. Ford very nearly won in the end against Carter. And the Republicans gained in Congress. I think things would have been a lot worse for Ford had he not done it. I actually think Ford's debate gaffe may have hurt him more in the end when he said, "There is no Soviet domination of Eastern Europe." In the end, a swing of 6,000 votes in Ohio and 15,000 votes in Wisconsin, Ford would have won. Ohio and Wisconsin, both big Rust Belt state with large Eastern European populations. I think that had he not made that mistake in the debate, Carter still would have won the popular vote, but it could have wound up like Florida in 2000. Any thoughts?
This is accurate.
At the 1976 Republican Convention, the delegate count was 1187 for Ford, 1070 for Reagan. Now, the pardon was quite popular with self-identified Republicans - by a margin of 57% to 33% in a poll taken just a few weeks prior to the convention. It was almost certainly significantly more popular with those Republicans motivated enough to vote in the primaries. Had Ford allowed Nixon to be prosecuted in an extended and very public airing of very dirty Republican laundry, it is almost certain that intraparty backlash would have resulted in Reagan being nominated.
In other words, not pardoning Nixon would have ensured that Ford could not win the 1976 general election, because he wouldn't even be the nominee.
Also, it should be noted that in fending off Reagan's challenge from the right, Ford had to stay right far longer than he would have liked during the campaign. This allowed Jimmy Carter to solidify his hold on the center before Ford himself could tack to the center post-convention. Bob Dole was a problematic running mate, picked in part as a concession to the conservative wing of the party that was disappointed that Reagan was not the nominee. And at the convention, Reagan overshadowed Ford.
Absent Reagan's challenge and all the problems it caused Ford, the incumbent President likely wins a second term.
I think Ford pardoned Nixon in order to stop the Congress from continuing their investigation into Watergate crimes, which had virtually brought Congress to a standstill at the time. As I recall, the pardon was unpopular at the time, but Ford deemed it necessary.
As I recall, Ford kept many of Nixon's appointees in place. I think there was a significant number of people that thought he should have cleaned house to avoid any appearance of keeping corrupt politicians in place after Nixon was forced to resign. Some people thought that it was necessary to get rid of Ford in order to get Nixon's cronies out of the Cabinet and out of policy making positions.
Ford was a nice and likeable man though never elected to his job. He was thought of as a BandAid after the Watergate-resignation-mess on top of the Agnew-resignation mess. All of those wounds were self-inflicted by the GOP. Then, on top of that, he goes and pardons Nixon. That was unpopular and seemed to many like a partisan act intended to save the GOP's bacon.
Carter was a nice and likeable man who was a rising star and had accomplished a lot in Georgia as a Democratic Governor. He had some respect. I recall a lot of buzz about him leading up to the race. Ford looked like a bumbler by comparison.
The Watergate hearings began, and then just as soon as the captured everyone's full attention, Spiro Agnew suddenly resigned after it was discovered he had been taking bribes ever since he was elected Governor, and the bribery continued into his Vice Presidency.
That was shocking, because Agnew had been Nixon's surrogate in the 1972 campaign and he did many of the speeches on the campaign trail. Agnew became almost as popular as Nixon inside the GOP, as he was a hard-liner who spoke out against the growing peace movement.
That Nixon wasn't withdrawing us out of Vietnam as he promised, and had expanded the bombing into neutral Cambodia was also making folks angry in both parties. Nixon was supposed to do what Johnson would not in 1968, and 4 years later, he kept promising we were very, very close to peace at last. Cambodia brought the largest protests ever.
The public became glued to their TV sets, watching the hearings all day long, day after day. For weeks. They were all televised, and back then, such prolonged coverage was very rare.
As the hearings progressed and more of the White House tapes were heard, folks were shocked again by how cynical and crass Nixon was. Along with his entire group of advisors. They all sounded like a bunch of gangsters. Erlichmann sneered at the committee and looked just like a crime boss when he did it.
But Nixon was the worst of all when he was on TV. He sweated, squirmed, scowled, pleaded, and acted guilty as sin. At first he was rarely televised, but as it progressed his appearances became frequent.
He was obviously disintegrating as the end approached, and it left an indelible image in the public's minds afterward.
"I'm not a crook!" is still remembered. Obviously, he was a crook to everyone. He left a lot of voters feeling betrayed.
Jerry Ford was uncomfortable taking the Vice Presidency, and by the time Nixon finally resigned, it was apparent he was even more reluctant to take over in the White House. He was never tainted by Nixon, but he never seemed to like the job.
Ford kept making a lot of small faux pas as President. In a normal time, most would have been overlooked, there was so much scrutiny on Ford they made him look bumbling. He became the butt of many jokes.
He was considered to be just a placeholder President, so when he announced, it came as a surprise for a lot of folks who presumed he wanted to go back to his old job in the House.
Long after the hearings ended, the fallout kept on coming. John Mitchell, the Atty. General, was sent to prison, and his wife Martha kept spilling the beans on stuff the hearings never touched.
It all sort of added up on him. More than anything, the public was just fed up with all the nastiness and corruption of the Nixon White House, and Carter, who was as clean as a whistle and an outsider, looked to be the better choice.
I remember I was one of very few I knew who voted for Ford. During the late campaign, Ford was hitting his stride, and began showing the forceful leadership that had made him such a popular Speaker of the House.
But it came too late. The voters wanted to clean house and a fresh start, especially in 1976, the Bi-Centennial year.
You know how people say that Gerald Ford did the right thing pardoning Nixon even though it probably cost him the election in 1976? Is that really accurate. I think Ford was in a position where he was damned if he did and damned if he didn't. Pardoning Nixon probably did cost Ford a few swing voters in the end, but if he hadn't done it, Nixon would have been further investigated, indicted, and gone on trial. The trial could have been going on or just concluded in November of 1976. Ford would be running against the backdrop of that trial. It could have been a slaughter for Republicans up and down the ticket. Ford very nearly won in the end against Carter. And the Republicans gained in Congress. I think things would have been a lot worse for Ford had he not done it. I actually think Ford's debate gaffe may have hurt him more in the end when he said, "There is no Soviet domination of Eastern Europe." In the end, a swing of 6,000 votes in Ohio and 15,000 votes in Wisconsin, Ford would have won. Ohio and Wisconsin, both big Rust Belt state with large Eastern European populations. I think that had he not made that mistake in the debate, Carter still would have won the popular vote, but it could have wound up like Florida in 2000. Any thoughts?
The pardon was appropriate. Had Ford not pardoned Nixon, the country would have--as you articulated above--had to have gone through the misery of a president being indicted, tried, and probably sent to prison. The country really needed to move on. There were other issues that needed to be dealt with. I give Gerald Ford credit for realizing that.
Many Americans though didn't see things that way. Ford's pardon of Nixon was further evidence to them that the famous, important, and/or wealthy people found ways to escape the legal system while the poor and middle class felt its entire wrath. I heard many people in that era express their anger over that pardon.
It was a close election. Jimmy Carter started with an enormous advantage over Gerald Ford. However, as we drew closer to election day, Carter's lead was dramatically shrinking in the polls. On election day Carter won by about 2 million popular votes. However, in the race for electoral votes the election was as close as any on record.
The pardon may well have meant the difference in this election. Its impossible to know for certain. However, it could easily have been what cost Ford the presidency.
I agree with another poster. Pardoning Nixon was the right thing to do. It was a very traumatic time for America. Watergate really tore the nation apart. What would be gained be another 3 years or more of Watergate? There were many other problems facing the country. We needed closure and to move on.
I agree with another poster. Pardoning Nixon was the right thing to do. It was a very traumatic time for America. Watergate really tore the nation apart. What would be gained be another 3 years or more of Watergate? There were many other problems facing the country. We needed closure and to move on.
That is the rationalization that we have settled upon now and the one that many or most people ascribed to at the time of the pardon. They were tired of Watergate. But it can be argued that the actual crime and cover-up were the most serious abuses of executive power in US history over the preceding 100 years. It was certainly the most public and simply getting tired of hearing about a crime is no reason to walk away from it. Did the continued investigation have to take place in Congress once Nixon resigned? Impeachment proceedings stopped when he resigned.
Do you think that the pardon set a precedent on holding people in very high public office unaccountable? We have seen the impeachment process being trotted out several times, but the outcome is simply a partisan game that is played. Presidents claim they are not indictable while in office. There was no real effort to hold Reagan accountable for the Iran/Contra mess. Ignoring the present suspense drama regarding the past president (this is the History forum), in Nixon's case he was no longer in office and the pardon went beyond impeachment. It was a "full, free, and absolute pardon".
I was just as happy as the next guy to be done with it but I'm not certain that it was the best legal plan to sweep it under the rug. Do presidents now get a pass thanks to that pardon? Ford believed that accepting a pardon was an admission of guilt and there is case law that supports that understanding. I suppose there is damage done to a person's reputation, at least. I'm not sure that Ford's view is widely or publicly understood, and most people see a pardon as getting off scot-free without any consequences.
Another interesting point was that this happened in the recent context of the Spiro Agnew resignation as Vice President a year earlier. That elevated Ford into the Vice President job. Agnew was facing prosecution for tax evasion and kickbacks over a number of years even before (and even during) serving as a sitting Vice President. He claimed that he could not be indicted while in office, but the investigation continued anyway. He finally pled nolo contendre or no contest to the charges and was fined $10k and placed on probation. This judgement happened sequentially right before he resigned. In other words, still as a sitting VP.
If Agnew had delayed or dodged prosecution and had not resigned, he would have become President when Nixon resigned. As it was, both investigations were going on at the same time with daily revelations showing up in the newspapers. No wonder people were tired of it all.
While what SunGrins says makes sense, the way I remember it is that the Congressional hearings continued after Nixon resigned. It was on TV all day long, every day. They were looking for exactly what crimes had been committed. Once the articles of Impeachment had gotten one count passed in the House, the process needed to come to some conclusion. It really did keep Congress for conducting other business. I suspect that the evidence uncovered by Congress ultimately lead too the convictions of several of the people involved in Watergate and the coverup.
That is the rationalization that we have settled upon now and the one that many or most people ascribed to at the time of the pardon. They were tired of Watergate. But it can be argued that the actual crime and cover-up were the most serious abuses of executive power in US history over the preceding 100 years. It was certainly the most public and simply getting tired of hearing about a crime is no reason to walk away from it. Did the continued investigation have to take place in Congress once Nixon resigned? Impeachment proceedings stopped when he resigned.
Do you think that the pardon set a precedent on holding people in very high public office unaccountable? We have seen the impeachment process being trotted out several times, but the outcome is simply a partisan game that is played. Presidents claim they are not indictable while in office. There was no real effort to hold Reagan accountable for the Iran/Contra mess. Ignoring the present suspense drama regarding the past president (this is the History forum), in Nixon's case he was no longer in office and the pardon went beyond impeachment. It was a "full, free, and absolute pardon".
I was just as happy as the next guy to be done with it but I'm not certain that it was the best legal plan to sweep it under the rug. Do presidents now get a pass thanks to that pardon? Ford believed that accepting a pardon was an admission of guilt and there is case law that supports that understanding. I suppose there is damage done to a person's reputation, at least. I'm not sure that Ford's view is widely or publicly understood, and most people see a pardon as getting off scot-free without any consequences.
Another interesting point was that this happened in the recent context of the Spiro Agnew resignation as Vice President a year earlier. That elevated Ford into the Vice President job. Agnew was facing prosecution for tax evasion and kickbacks over a number of years even before (and even during) serving as a sitting Vice President. He claimed that he could not be indicted while in office, but the investigation continued anyway. He finally pled nolo contendre or no contest to the charges and was fined $10k and placed on probation. This judgement happened sequentially right before he resigned. In other words, still as a sitting VP.
If Agnew had delayed or dodged prosecution and had not resigned, he would have become President when Nixon resigned. As it was, both investigations were going on at the same time with daily revelations showing up in the newspapers. No wonder people were tired of it all.
I think your points are well taken. The problem is that Watergate was literally consuming the country. Every lead news story on network t.v. or in the newspapers dealt with some aspect of the scandal. Other issues were not getting their due. We had high energy costs and mounting inflation. Stagflation meant that we also had a high unemployment rate at the same time.
A secondary issue that some of us had was the nature of Nixon's offenses. I felt a President who did what Nixon did had to be forced from office. I wondered though if prison was appropriate. His crimes were not committed for financial gain. They were committed for political reasons that would never furnish the motive for any offense committed outside of government. Once Nixon was out of office, he could not commit these offenses again and sending him to prison seemed less important.
Finally, in some ways Nixon had been a decent President. He seemed to understand foreign policy and did a more than decent job dealing with the USSR and China. Under his presidency, EPA and OSHA were established. He made some decent picks for the Supreme Court. I saw part of the reason for the pardon as a bit of recognition for doing some things right.
Agnew, on the other hand, was just a two bit crook. He was taking bribes in exchange for giving contractors who did business with the state of Maryland contracts. I am sorry he never went to prison.
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