1974: the accidental president: Gerald Ford never ran for higher office, but after the Watergate scandal, he stepped into the presidency and helped the nation heal its wounds.

• Author: Zack, Ian
• Position: TIMES PAST

BACKGROUND

Gerald Ford is the only President never elected to either the presidency or the vice presidency. His pardon of Richard Nixon for his rote in the Watergate scandal. was wildly unpopular at the time, but many historians have come to view it as having helped the country move on from the "long national. nightmare" of Watergate.

On Aug. 9, 1974, without the fanfare that usually accompanies such occasions, Gerald R. Ford took the oath of office as America's 38th President. He then delivered a brief address from the White House, trying to calm a nation that seemed on the verge of coming apart.

"My fellow Americans, our long national nightmare is over," Ford said. "Our Constitution works; our great Republic is a government of laws and not of men. Here the people rule."

The country was reeling from the Watergate scandal and the resignation earlier that day of President Richard M. Nixon, who had faced almost certain impeachment by the House of Representatives and possible conviction and removal from office by the Senate for his role in the affair.

Ford, who died in December at the age of 93, was an unlikely hero. He considered himself a "man of the House"--a career Congressman. He had never been elected, or even run for, President or Vice President.

But his plainspoken assurance that the office of the presidency was more important than any individual who occupied it, was just what the nation needed to hear in 1974. And his decision--a month into his term and wildly unpopular at the time--to pardon Nixon for his misdeeds is now seen by many historians as having helped the country move on from Watergate.

CHANGE OF PLANS

Less than a year before moving into the Oval Office, Ford was serving his 13th term in the House as a Republican representing his hometown of Grand Rapids, Mich. With his mild Midwestern manner and ability to get along with people on both sides of the political aisle, the former Eagle Scout and University of Michigan football star had risen to the post of House Minority Leader in 1965.

Democrats had controlled Congress since 1954, however, and Ford had just about given up his dream of becoming Speaker of the House. He'd promised his wife, Betty, that he would run for a final term in 1974 and retire from public life when it was up two years later.

But scandals in the Nixon White House would change his plans.

The Watergate affair began in June 1972 with a botched attempt by five men, nicknamed the "plumbers," who were hired by Nixon's re-election campaign to bug the offices of the Democratic National Committee at the Watergate complex in Washington.

The Nixon campaign denied any involvement and the President was reelected in November in a landslide over Democrat George McGovern. But as...