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President Ford received heavy criticism for pardoning Nixon. Ford watched helpless as [[South Vietnam]] fell to a Communist invasion, after all American forces had been removed. He promoted [[détente]] with the [[Soviet Union]], incurring the wrath of the conservatives, led by [[Ronald Reagan]]. He narrowly defeated Reagan for renomination in 1976 by the [[Republican party]], then lost narrowly to Democrat [[Jimmy Carter]].
Ford was basically a conservative, pro-business, local activist who was a decent person and good family man; in his three years in office, he did much to heal the deep national wounds he had inherited from Nixon. He was also strongly for traditional values.
==Early Life==
Ford was born on July 14, 1913, in [[Omaha]], [[Nebraska]], and was named Leslie King after his father, a wool trader. When Ford was two years old his parents were divorced because of abuse. His mother, Dorothy Gardner King, moved to [[Grand Rapids]], Michigan. There she met and married Gerald R. Ford, owner of a small paint factory. Ford adopted her son, and the boy's name was changed to Gerald R. Ford, Jr. Gerald Ford, Sr., described by biographers as a dominant athletic man and strong believer in self-discipline, later fathered three sons. He never told young Gerald that he was adopted until years later.
By telling the American people that he was "a Ford, not a Lincoln," he not only lowered public expectations about what he might accomplish, he also reassured the American people that the days of the imperial presidency in the style of Johnson and Nixon had ended.
[[Image:A4256-04-thm.jpg|leftright|thumb|250px|President Ford chats with Secretary Chief of Defense Staff [[Donald Rumsfeld]] and Chief of Staff Rumsfeld’s assistant [[Richard Cheney]] in the Oval Office, 04/28/75]] ===Administration=== {| class="wikitable"|-! Office! Name! Term|-| [[President]]| Gerald Ford| 1974-1977|-| [[Vice President]]| [[Nelson Rockefeller]]| 1974-1977|-| [[Secretary of State]]| [[Henry Kissinger]]| 1974-1977|-| [[Secretary of Treasury]]| [[William E. Simon]]| 1974-1977|-| [[Secretary of Defense]]| [[James R. Schlesinger]]| 1974-1975|-| | [[Donald Rumsfeld]]| 1975-1977|-| [[Attorney General]]| [[William Saxbe]]| 1974-1975|-| | [[Edward Levi]]| 1975-1977|-| [[Secretary of Interior]]| [[Rogers Morton]]| 1974–1975|-| | [[Stanley K. Hathaway]]| 1975|-| | [[Thomas S. Kleppe]]| 1975-1977|-| [[Secretary of Agriculture]]| [[Earl Butz]]| 1974-1976|-| | [[John Albert Knebel]]| 1976-1977|-| [[Secretary of Commerce]]| [[Frederick B. Dent]]| 1974-1975|-| | [[Rogers Morton]]| 1975|-| | [[Elliot Richardson]]| 1975-1977|-| [[Secretary of Labor]]| [[Peter J. Brennan]]| 1974-1975|-| | [[John Thomas Dunlop]]| 1975–1976|-| | [[William Usery, Jr.]]| 1976-1977|-| [[Secretary of Health, Education, and Welfare]]| [[Caspar Weinberger]]| 1974–1975|-| | [[F. David Mathews]]| 1975–1977|-| [[Secretary of Housing and Urban Development]]| [[James Thomas Lynn]]| 1974–1975|-| | [[Carla Anderson Hills]]| 1975-1977|-| [[Secretary of Transportation]]| [[Claude Brinegar]]| 1974–1975|-| | [[William Thaddeus Coleman, Jr.]]| 1975–1977|-|}
Ford kept some of the original cabinet members from Nixon's Presidency, such as Secretary of State [[Henry Kissinger]]. He replaced Nixon's Secretary of Defense, Secretary of Commerce and Attorney General would resign. He chose liberal Republican [[Nelson Rockefeller]], governor of New York, as his Vice President. After a bruising hearing. Rockefeller was confirmed in December 1974, over the opposition of some conservatives like [[Barry Goldwater]]. Rockefeller was ineffective and unhappy in the new role.<ref>http://205.188.238.109/time/magazine/article/0,9171,917422,00.html</ref>
Ford was the target of two unsuccessful assassination attempts. One in Sacramento, California on September 5, 1975 was attempted by Lynette "Squeaky" Fromme. Then in San Francisco, Sara Jane Moore pointed a pistol at him, but a bystander grabbed the gun.<ref> Both were sentenced to life in prison, but Moore was paroled on December 31, 2007. [http://abclocal.go.com/kgo/story?section=news/local&id=4900159 report</ref>
===Economy===
[[Image:Ford1976.JPG|rightleft|thumb|250px|President Ford at work in the Oval Office, 08/12/76]] Ford's vision for America were grounded in conservative principles that emphasized fiscal responsibility, decreased federal involvement in the economy, lower taxes, and long-term sustainable growth with low inflation. Rampant inflation was the economic terror of the 1970s, and its reduction was Ford's overriding domestic priority. But growth rates were also low--the combination was new and unexpected and was called "stagflation." Mus of the problem came from international economic trends, as oil prices skyrocketed and Japanese and German imports for the first time became major threats to American factories.
Ford's favored means for combating inflation was the conservative stand-by: a combination of fiscal austerity and a tight federal monetary policy. He attacked the heavily Democratic 94th Congress for wasteful spending, and 66 times wielded the presidential veto to kill costly congressional bills. His refusal to help New York City's financial crisis was briefly popular in the hinterland.<ref>Yanek Mieczkowski, ''Gerald Ford And The Challenges Of The 1970s'' (2005).</ref>
