Gerard R. Ford - No. 38 - Grand Rapids, MI - April 9, 2022

Gerald R. Ford

What is the best thing Gerald Ford did as president?

Why, build a pool at the White House, of course.

 

As avid swimmers, we were thrilled to learn that Ford was the president who installed the outdoor pool on the White House grounds. And he didn’t build it for his kids or to float on his back. He was a lifelong, dedicated swimmer who did laps every day, sometimes even twice a day in his retirement years. He quipped, “Fifteen minutes in the pool are worth two martinis” (DeFrank, 2007).

 

In fact, on his first day as president, the first thing he did in the morning was take a swim before heading to the White House.

 

In 1975, the pool, along with a cabana and showers, joined the list of amenities that first families have added to the White House. The outdoor pool, which joined the indoor pool built when FDR was in office, was the only change Ford made to the White House.

 

We learned about Ford’s love of swimming at the Gerald R. Ford Museum at the beginning of April 2022. It was a cold, gray, wet, raw day - with snow in the morning, despite the calendar saying it was April. A good day to spend inside a museum.  Tom’s 90-year-old mother, Marianne, who lives in nearby Kalamazoo, joined us.  (When we started our presidential journey 12 years ago, we had envisioned reaching Gerald Ford far earlier and having Tom’s father, Robert, join us.  Sadly, we lost Robert last summer.)

 

Gerald Ford Museum in Grand Rapids, MI.

The museum, which lies along the Grand River in Grand Rapids, Mich., is sleek and modern looking. It features a lot of open space, and it offers visitors many short films and interactive videos to learn from. It covers his entire life — from displays about his abusive father and loving stepfather to his Eagle Scout career (the only president to be an Eagle Scout), his political career and finally, his funeral. 

 

One display focuses on his love of sports. Growing up, he played basketball, track and, of course, was on the high school swim team (in the photo of his team, he towers above his teammates). His real love, though, was football, and the museum includes information about his attempted recruitment to the NFL by the Green Bay Packers — by Curly Lambeau himself(!) — and the Detroit Lions. While flattered, Ford opted to go to Yale Law School.

 

Ford's swimming days -
He is in the front row far left.

His stepfather was a big believer in sports, saying that sports “taught you how to live, how to compete but always by the rules, how to be part of a team, how to win, how to lose, and how to come back to try again.”

 

Another interesting fact highlighted in the display about Ford’s teenage years: In high school, he had a choice to go to a new high school, considered elite, or to South High, populated by children of immigrants. A family friend and his basketball coach told his parents to send him to South High, where “he will learn more about living.” And he did.

 

Of course, the museum is focused on Ford’s legacy as a congressman, vice president and president.  When he entered Congress in 1948, he was advised to either be a “parliamentarian” or get on important committees and become an expert.  So, he worked his way onto the Public Works Committee and the Appropriations Committee.  He spent 25 years in Congress, reaching House minority leader in 1964.  In October 1973, Nixon chose him as vice president to replace Spiro Agnew, who was caught up in a bribery and tax fraud scandal.  

 

Ford married Betty Bloomer, a ballerina and model in 1948.  When he proposed to her earlier that year, he told her, “I’d like to marry you, but we can’t get married until next fall and I can’t tell you why” (Thomas, 1999)  He had not yet announced he was running for Congress.

 

And while we kid (sort of) about the pool being the most important thing Ford accomplished as president, many — including George H.W. Bush — would argue that Ford’s presidency was critical to the nation because he “restored the integrity of the Oval Office.”

 

After taking office after the Watergate scandal, Ford said:  “My fellow Americans, our long national nightmare is over.  Our Constitution works; our great Republic is a government of laws and not of men….”

 

Ford was a modest president, eschewing the trappings of power.  He insisted that the Marine Band play the University of Michigan fight song instead of Hail to the Chief when he walked into rooms.

 

Ford signed the Helsinki Accords with the Soviet Union in 1975.  The agreement helped improve relations between the United States and the USSR and made travel to Eastern Europe easier.  For Tom’s family, it meant his parents could travel to their birth country Hungary with less fear of arrest for leaving the country ‘illegally’ in 1957.  Ford said later that the Helsinki Accords led to the downfall of the Soviet Union because of the human rights provisions in it.

 

Asked for her recollection of Ford, Tom’s mother replied, “I remember him coming down from an airplane and almost fell, and then people made fun of him.”  It’s true. Despite his athleticism, he had a reputation for clumsiness – as immortalized by Chevy Chase in Saturday Night Live.

 

Ford was subject to not one, but two, assassination attempts, both in the same month!  First, a Charlie Manson follower named Squeaky Fromme took a point-blank shot at Ford in Sacramento, CA.  Luckily, there was no round in the firing chamber of the loaded revolver.  Later that month of September 1975,  Sarah Jane Moore took two shots at Ford in San Francisco and missed him both times.

 

In addition to pardoning Nixon, Ford gave amnesty to Vietnam war draft dodgers.  He also pushed for admittance of 120,000 Vietnamese immigrants when South Vietnam fell in April 1975.

 

The economy was in the dumps.

During most of his time in the White House, the economy was in the dumps.  There is a line graph at the museum that shows inflation and the unemployment rate during his presidency.  In August 1974, inflation was running at 10.9% and the unemployment rate was 5.5%.  Inflation would rise to 12.4% by the end of that year and by mid-1975, unemployment was at 8.6%.  

 

Between the economy and the Nixon pardon, Ford’s run for a full four-year term in 1976 was doomed.  Another faux pas:  he dumped his Vice President Nelson Rockefeller for Kansas Senator Bob Dole.  (He never forgave himself for being disloyal to Rockefeller.)  

 

Conservative California Gov. Ronald Reagan sensed vulnerability in Ford and challenged him for the Republican nomination.  He almost won, too.  Ford held on by only 117 delegates out of 2,300.  In the general election, Ford lost to Georgia Gov, Jimmy Carter 297 to 240.  It didn’t help matters that Ford proclaimed in his second debate with Carter that “There is no Soviet domination in Eastern Europe, and there will never be under a Ford administration.”  Whoops.  

 

But Ford always believed he could have beaten Carter if Reagan hadn’t weakened him.  He said later, ““I deserved an opportunity to run…” (DeFrank, 2007).  Reagan’s success as a politician always bothered Ford.  He “considered Reagan a superficial, disengaged, intellectually lazy showman who didn’t do his homework and clung to a naïve, unrealistic, and essentially dangerous worldview.” (Defrank, 2007)

 

In retirement, Ford continued to crave his swimming.  At age 90, he still swam twice a day.  When he was sick at age 92, he complained, “My damn doctors won’t let me go in the pool.”  (DeFrank, 2007 ). 

 

Tom and his mother, Marianne
outside the museum.

Ford died in 2006 at the age of 93.  He and his wife, Betty, are buried just outside the museum.  We walked along a path to pay our respects.  Ford was the right president at the right time—honest, hardworking, and self-effacing.  He used to quip, “I’m a Ford, not a Lincoln.”  

Directions

 

The Gerald R. Ford Museum is located just off Highway 131 in downtown Grand Rapids.

 

 

References

 

DeFrank, Thomas.  2007.  Write it When I’m Gone.  Berkley Books.  New York, NY.

 

Thomas, Helen.  1999.  Front Row at the White House;  My Life and Times. Scribner.  New York, NY.