Former president Gerald Ford dies, Died at age 93 Options

[*Duchess of Dork*]

Source: Reuters

Former president Gerald Ford dies
Wed Dec 27, 2006 5:50 AM ET

By Steve Gorman

LOS ANGELES (Reuters) - Former U.S. President Gerald Ford, who was swept into office after the Watergate scandal and later pardoned Richard Nixon, has died at age 93 at his home in California.

Ford took office as the 38th U.S. president vowing, "Our long national nightmare is over." He served for 2 1/2 years with a style often mocked as bumbling until he lost the 1976 U.S. presidential election to Democrat Jimmy Carter.

The oldest living U.S. president, Ford had been ailing and largely out of the public eye for several years. He died at 6:45 p.m. (0245 GMT) on Tuesday at his home in Rancho Mirage, his office said. No cause of death was given.

Funeral services will take place in Washington and Grand Rapids, Michigan, his boyhood home. Plans will be made final on Wednesday, Ford's office said. The public may view the body in Palm Desert, California, Washington and Grand Rapids, it said.

"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," Betty Ford said in a statement.

"His life was filled with love of God, his family and his country."

A former Republican congressman, Ford was the only U.S. president who was not elected to either the presidency or vice presidency. He was appointed vice president in 1973 after Nixon's vice president, Spiro Agnew, resigned to avoid prosecution on corruption charges.

Ford became president when Nixon resigned on August 9, 1974, to avoid impeachment in the scandal over a politically motivated burglary of Democratic Party offices in the Watergate complex in Washington.

One month later, on September 8, 1974, Ford stunned the nation and stirred enduring controversy by granting Nixon "a full, free and absolute pardon" for any crime he may have committed in office.

That set the paradoxical pattern for the fill-in presidency of this rough-hewn politician who had served 26 years as a congressman from Michigan.

A HEALER, BUSH SAYS

"President Ford was a great American who gave many years of dedicated service to our country," President George W. Bush said in a statement. "With his quiet integrity, common sense, and kind instincts, President Ford helped heal our land and restore public confidence in the presidency."

Ford's pastor, Rev. Robert Certain, said the former president had celebrated Christmas on Monday with his wife and three sons.

His death leaves three living former presidents including George H.W. Bush, Carter and Bill Clinton. Bush is oldest at 82, a few months senior to Carter.

Ford is survived by four children and his wife of 58 years, Betty Ford, who won many admirers for her personal battles against breast cancer and prescription drug and alcohol addiction. The Betty Ford Center she helped found in 1982 is viewed as a top center for treating drug and alcohol abuse.

Ford's mini-term included two assassination attempts; the fall of Vietnam; Cambodian seizure of a U.S. freighter, which prompted him to "send in the Marines;" constant fights with Congress; and a stumbling, head-cracking clumsiness that made him a butt of jokes.

Critics ridiculed his occasional clumsiness with barbs such as "he can't walk and chew gum at the same time."

Ford revived questions about his intellect and grasp of issues with a notorious gaffe in a televised campaign debate against Carter in 1976. He asserted in defense of his foreign policies that "there is no Soviet domination of Eastern Europe."

He fell just short in his fight to overcome a 30-point Carter polling lead and lost one of the closest elections in U.S. history.

Gerald Rudolph Ford was born in Omaha, Nebraska, on July 14, 1913. His name then was Leslie King but his parents were divorced soon after his birth and he later took the name of his stepfather, Gerald Ford Sr.

A Navy officer in World War II, Ford married Betty Bloomer in 1948.

(Additional reporting by Doina Chiacu in Washington and Adam Tanner in San Francisco)

Flag here at the hospital was at half-staff this morning, so I knew something was up.

He lived a very long life. RIP