Travel Photo of the Week
Gerald Ford ... and his unusual connection to this week's news
Gerald Ford was a singular figure in American history, as the only man to serve as president without ever having been elected either president or vice president. Ford also, as you’ll see, has an unusual connection to this past week’s political news.
Above is a photo of a statue of Ford outside his presidential museum in Grand Rapids, Michigan. It’s a splendid presidential museum, if you’re ever in the area. But for purposes of this piece, we’re going to take a brief look at Ford’s unlikely ascension to the presidency, as well as his surprising link to the history of presidential assassinations — specifically, to the second assassination attempt on Donald Trump
1. Gerald Ford becomes president
Ford was chosen by President Richard Nixon to serve as vice president when the incumbent, Spiro Agnew, resigned in 1973 after being accused of bribery and tax evasion. Ford at the time was the GOP Minority Leader in the House. Nixon selected Ford because he was a party congressional leader, was a decent man who was well liked by his colleagues and, as a result, was someone who’d be easily confirmed by Congress.
Eight months later, to the surprise of many, Ford became president when Nixon himself resigned at the height of the Watergate scandal.
It was tumultuous time in American politics. In the previous decade there were multiple political assassinations and the country had been rocked by antiwar protests and race riots. In the early 1970s, inflation and unemployment were on the rise, and the country was also dealing with homegrown terrorism. A group called the Weather Underground exploded dozens of bombs in U.S. cities and at government buildings. It was in the midst of this turmoil that both the vice president and president resigned within a year of each other.
When Ford took office in 1974, however, his sense of utter normalcy and his down to earth persona seemed to make him the perfect president for the times. This is how Tip O’Neill, the Democratic Speaker of the House, described Ford (the inscription is on the base of Ford’s statue at his presidential museum):
2. Ford, Trump, and assassination attempts
But even a man such as Ford couldn’t escape the turmoil of the era.
In September 1975, Ford was the target of an assassination attempt. Twice.
On September 5, Lynette Fromme raised a pistol at Ford as he walked past a crowd in Sacramento, California, but she was disarmed by an alert Secret Service agent before she could fire the weapon. Less than three weeks later, on September 22 in San Francisco, Sara Jane Moore shot at the president as he left a hotel, missing her target by only six inches. A bystander grabbed her arm as she fired another shot, causing the second bullet to go astray. Interestingly, both would-be assassins were women, the only time females were involved in a U.S. assassination attempt.
Later investigations revealed that Fromme had no particular grudge against Ford, but she was a follower of the cult leader Charles Manson, was exasperated with government in general, and was upset about environmental pollution. And Moore, who had endured five broken marriages and was angry over the Vietnam War, said her goal had been to start a revolution.
So yes, Donald Trump and Gerald Ford were both targeted in two different assassination attempts.
Not surprisingly, perhaps, all of them happened at a time of political upheaval in the nation and were all committed by individuals who appear to have been mentally unstable.
The way to move past such political violence, of course, is to find a way through the upheavals that are battering the nation’s psyche and to tamp down the country’s temperature. In 1975, Ford tried to do this. Today, I’m afraid we live in an era where not every political leader is quite as committed to lowering the political temperature.
Where we go from here, I don’t know, but at the every least we can condemn violence in any form. If we’re lucky, we can find a way through these times of political madness.
See more Travel Photos of the Week here.
I too am hoping we find our way through.