IN MARCH OF 2004, I flew to the desert for what would turn out to be the last interview where Ford was still seemingly at the peak of his intellectual faculties. I couldn’t know that at the time, of course, particularly since by all outward signs he seemed totally unchanged from our previous encounters.
That interview was also the last that fit our standard pattern: an informal, scattershooting, around-the-world blend of politics, gossip, current events, historical flashbacks, and personal chitchat.
We sat down in the study of his office at 3:00 P.M. on a balmy Monday. Ford was dressed in his standard desert uniform: golf shirt, chinos, brown casual shoes.
He was less a former president this day than just a ninety-year-old guy musing about what anyone his age would have at the top of his agenda: the state of his health.
“I’ve had a couple of little interim setbacks. I was out playing golf on a hot day and stupidly got caught…and my doctors are doing their damnedest to balance out my blood pressure. It goes from too high to too low, so they’ve got me taking medication to balance it. When I stand up they want me to count to ten so I don’t faint.
“I took a spill the other morning getting out of—well, not getting out of bed but getting dressed, and I was damn lucky. I fell into another piece of furniture, and, boy, I couldn’t get up, couldn’t get Betty. We finally did, and we had to get the agents over to untangle me. I thought, My God, supposing I was here alone.”
“Well, but you’re almost never alone, right?”
“That’s true, thank God.
“I bruised a hand here, but I took some Celebrex and it went away. But other than those little incidents, it taught me a lesson: to be damn careful. I keep reading about people my age taking a spill and bringing bad results.” Consequently, “at night when I get up to go to the john, I am extra cautious. I’m not in that big of a hurry.”
After talking about it for years, Ford had finally decided to curtail his traveling, particularly to New York for his corporate board meetings.
“I’m still on the board of American Express and Citigroup as adviser. They kick you off when you’re seventy-five or whatever it is. And I used to go to the board meetings up until last year. Finally, Betty and I talked it over; to go to New York from here is a three-day trip and I just decided those three-day trips, Tom, were just too tough. So I talked to Sandy Weill at Citigroup, Ken Chenault at American Express, and said, ‘I’d like to stay on the board as an adviser; I have been for many years. I can’t travel. Can I do it telephonically?’ And they both agreed. And I did an American Express meeting for two and a half hours this morning telephonically, and I’ll do a Citigroup board meeting next week sometime.
“I swim twice a day. I got up this morning at 7:30, took a swim, had breakfast, and then had my board meeting. And I’ll swim this afternoon. I swim two laps in the morning, two laps at night. I used to do ten.”
He was still golfing, but that passion had also been cut back and was steadily heading toward a fond memory, like skiing.
“I’m a nine-holer. In fact, if I play, I play three to six holes—just enough to loosen up and—I’ve got a couple of—well, we’ve got a group over at Vintage Golf Course here that at ten o’clock, if you want to play nine holes or less, drop by and you’ll find one or more that’ll be glad to play with you. So we call it the Nine-Holers. Up until last month I probably did it once every two weeks. But I haven’t—for some reason I didn’t have much ambition to play the last month or two.”
There was another major change in his schedule; I’d heard he wouldn’t be attending the 2004 Republican convention; the doctors didn’t want to risk a repeat of 2000, where he’d suffered a stroke at the Philadelphia convention.
“I don’t think so, Tom. I will be ninety-one and I will have been at how many of them? First one I went to was in Philadelphia in ’76, wasn’t it?”
“Didn’t you go to the convention with Willkie—‘We Want Willkie’—in 1940?”
Ford lit up at the memory of his Young Turk days. “Oh, yeah! My God! Yeah, that was also in Philadelphia. We were out there [outside]. ‘We Want Willkie.’ But then I had the years in the military where we didn’t go [in 1944]. Didn’t I read someplace that Herbert Hoover went to one when he was ninety?”
He might not be heading to New York, but his mind was very much engaged in election politics—specifically the matter of Bush’s running mate. I wasn’t prepared for what happened next: an admission that it might be best for President Bush if he dumped Dick Cheney, Bush’s controversial and increasingly unpopular vice president.
In four short years, Cheney had gone from huge political asset to huge political liability. In 2000, his long service in the legislative and executive branches had reassured moderate and independent voters tired of the Clinton years but worried that Bush was too inexperienced to be president.
Now Cheney’s muscular views on just about everything, but especially the Iraq War, had become a problem for Bush, according to many Republican leaders.
In fact, Ford volunteered, he’d gotten feelers from old friends on Capitol Hill and Republican political associates disgruntled with Cheney:
“I’ve had several people come to me about ‘are they gonna make a change in the vice presidential selection,’ and in effect suggesting that I should do something about it,” he said, chuckling. “Which I’m not gonna do.
“But totally off the record, Dick has not been the asset I expected on the ticket. As you know, he’s a great friend of mine, he did a great job for me, but he has not clicked, if that’s the right word. God knows he works at it.”
“So do you think he has become a liability for Bush?”
“Oh, he’s not as big an asset as he should be. I put it on the affirmative.”
“You’re not the only person who thinks that. Some people say it’s because he’s just become—moved too far to the right. He’s just not stayed in the middle like you—you know, kind of a middle-of-the-road conservative, that he’s just kind of been too far out there.”
“Well, when the problem of Saddam Hussein came up, they justified going to war on the basis of finding weapons of mass destruction. That was the wrong place to put the emphasis, Tom. They had plenty of good evidence that Saddam Hussein was a bad man and should be thrown out. There was no question they could prove that. Why they got hooked on the weapons of mass destruction is beyond my comprehension. I think it was a mistake to use that as the justification when they had all the evidence they needed—this bad individual. Do you have any idea why they did that?”
“They got into this mode where it was kind of we’re smarter than you are,” I replied. “We know better, and if you knew what we knew, you wouldn’t question us, and just go leave us alone. I think September 11 just so traumatized Bush that he just—I was told Bush decided to attack Iraq a week after September 11.”
“Hmmm.”
“And the guy who told me that was [General] Tommy Franks. He told me that he got a call from Bush a week after September 11 saying, ‘How quickly can you put together a plan to attack Iraq?’”
“Well,” Ford responded, returning to his WMD theme, “they’re still looking for those weapons, and they ain’t gonna find them, or at least not sufficiently to justify…as cause to go to war.”
As quickly as I could without being too obvious, I steered the conversation back to Cheney. Ford was telegraphing, in his let-them-down-easy style, that Bush might be better off getting himself a new running mate. Out of affection for his old chief of staff, however, he wouldn’t be party to a cabal, as he had been in 1992 with Dan Quayle.
“A lot of people say to me, ‘You’ve known Cheney a long time,’” I said. “‘Do you think he’s changed?’ And I go back and forth on whether I think he’s changed. What do you think? Do you think he’s the same guy [or] has he changed?”
“I don’t have a lot of contact with him, but from my contacts, I don’t think personality-wise he’s changed. I don’t think he’s moved way over to the right; that’s not my impression. I don’t like his view on why they went to war, but I think he’s still a good man, but that doesn’t mean he’s the best candidate for vice president.”
“Well, do you think Bush should make a change?” I pressed.
“I have not talked to anybody [about] do I think they should get rid of him. I just say that other people are talking to me about making a change, but I have not promoted it myself. I’m apprehensive as to his help to the ticket.”
“Who do you think would be a good [replacement] choice?”
Perhaps as a salve to his still-hurting conscience over dumping Nelson Rockefeller in 1975, Ford mentioned two New York politicians:
“Well, they all ask me that. How about Pataki? Good governor, a winner, would bring personality to the ticket. He won New York twice. What about Giuliani?”
“I think he would win New York,” I answered, “but he is such a loose cannon, and he’s pro-choice, you know. And he’s not a team player. And the Bush people—look at what happened to Paul O’Neill—they just can’t handle somebody who’s not a total team player. So Giuliani would be good, but he’s not their kind of person.”
“No.”
“He’s got the dynamism, he’s got the hero stuff, he would help a lot, but I just don’t think that unless Dick has a health problem, I don’t think Bush is gonna take him off the ticket.”
“You’re probably right,” Ford concluded. “He’s stubborn about those things.”
I asked if he’d spoken to George W. Bush lately, and he said they’d just missed connections.
“We were supposed to go to dinner at Annenberg’s last Saturday; he was here. But we had another commitment. I haven’t talked to either Bush for probably a month. I don’t believe in calling him to have a friendly chat. I want him to have something to ask me, and vice versa. We [recently] talked about problems in Iraq and Afghanistan in generalities, not into why they did and so forth. You could infer why they wanted to do it.”
I wanted to know if he thought Iraq was still a political plus for Bush, but before answering he took a potshot at Richard Clarke, the former National Security Council counterterrorism expert who had been critical of the administration’s war planning.
“Did you see that guy Clarke last night? He’s a pain in the ass. He looks like an egotistical jackass—very pro-himself.”
As for Iraq: “I think it’s lost some of its appeal politically, but I don’t think at this stage—at this stage, Tom—it is a terrible liability. If they got a break and got bin Laden, a lot of the apprehension would fade away. [The casualty rate is] over five hundred now. It becomes more difficult as time passes, just like in the case of Vietnam. When they started Vietnam, those early losses were not looked at as too bad. But as they got up to a thousand, it became more difficult.
“I’m asked often, does the president have a tougher job in the current circumstances than you had, or Reagan had, or Carter had? And my answer is yes. President Bush has a much more difficult job. When Reagan and Carter and I and Johnson were in office, it was a challenge between the Soviet Union and the United States, their allies and our allies. When we negotiated, we understood what the problems were. We knew that they had so much in weapons, we knew they knew how much we had in weapons. And it was a much more responsible negotiation, even though the weapons were scary. President Bush has to deal with a worldwide, multifaceted problem, and that makes it much more complicated, and I say much more dangerous.
“Considering the problems on his menu, I think he’s doing fine, but he’s got problems that are gonna make it difficult to win unless they get better. Fortunately, the economy seems to have turned around. In fact, the latest employment figures were very encouraging. But the war, gasoline prices, something like that could be a pain in the you-know-what.”
I knew that Ford was a longtime deficit hawk, so I wondered what he thought about Bush’s mushrooming budget shortfalls.
“I never saw the figures change so dramatically as they did, what, three years ago. Two or three surpluses to $300 billion deficit. It scares me, Tom. I’m amazed that the White House doesn’t seem to worry about it.”
I reminded him of what former secretary of the treasury Paul O’Neill, a longtime Ford favorite from his days in the budget office, had said in the book he’d collaborated on after being sacked. Cheney had told O’Neill that Ronald Reagan proved deficits don’t matter. That prompted Ford to ask for a little gossip.
“I got a copy of Paul O’Neill’s book with a nice letter from him. What’s the story there? Did he just have an out with the president? I stayed out of the public press on it. He was a first-class bureaucrat. He was number two in OMB with me. I think it wasn’t handled very well, whatever.”
Turning to the fall elections, Ford predicted, “It’s going to be a very close election, and I wouldn’t gamble that Bush is gonna win. It’s that tight, Tom. You got, what, six months, eight months, a lot can happen between now and then. My dear wife, who’s a pretty well-read, knowledgeable person, she thinks it’s gonna be a horse race.”
Whom should John Kerry pick as his running mate? Ford hadn’t given that too much thought, but did allow it was probably better that the Democratic number two should be somebody outside of Washington.
Parenthetically, I asked for a progress report on his attempts to become computer-literate. I knew what the answer would be.
“I’ve kinda given up on that, although my dear wife is our computer expert. Our kids and grandchildren, they’re all in that and know all about it.” Then he abruptly changed the subject to a happier topic:
“I want to tell you about some good news. It really is not a part of this interview. But you know, two years ago the University of Michigan established the Gerald R. Ford School of Public Policy. They wanted to build a new building for $32 million, and they wanted—the university put up $20 million, and I and my friends had to raise $12 million. Well, you just don’t go out and raise $12 million with a few campaign speeches. I’m gonna give you some figures that will maybe shock you. Sandy Weill and his wife gave $4 million. Jay Van Andel gave a million, Max Fisher from Detroit gave a million. Paul O’Neill gave a million. Betty and I gave a million. Lee Annenberg gave $3 million. We are over the hump, and they’re going to have a groundbreaking probably in November of this year. I never thought people, even though they were good friends, would step to the plate and do something like that. Brent Scowcroft gave $250,000.”
His namesake school was so important to him that he’d already abandoned his new rule about flying east. “We get a private plane; both Betty and I will go.”
“Especially if it’s a football weekend, right?”
“Well, it just so happens Michigan’s playing Northwestern,” he said, laughing heartily.
Aside from relatively good health for a nonagenarian, he seemed unusually serene to me.
“When I see what my friends did for a project involving me, I can’t help but feel serene or comfortable or whatever, because I never thought there would be this kind of response. In each case it was their initiative. Sandy and Joan [Weill’s wife]—Of course, you know I’ve done very well with Citigroup, and he and I have had this wonderful friendship. But to have somebody come up and say here’s four million dollars. Lee Annenberg—we’ve been a very good friend of hers since Walter died. For her, first there was a million, then she came up with another two. Sandy requested that his name be on the building, and the university agreed. Well, they should. It’s gonna be the Sanford and Joan Weill Building at the Ford School of Public Policy.”
He was also mellow about his four kids, all of whom seemed to have discovered their niches.
“Jack and his family were up at Beaver Creek last week, skiing. Steve still hasn’t found a prospective bride. Susan and Vaden are down in Albuquerque, and Mike has one of his daughters getting married, and we’re going to the wedding on October 15 down at Winston[-Salem]. Betty and I are taking it easy.”
I’d heard Mrs. Ford hadn’t been well.
“Well, you’re right. I’m ninety and she’s eighty-five; we can’t complain. Married for fifty-five, going on fifty-six years.”
Without discussing that fateful conversation where he’d sworn me to secrecy, we reminisced about his first trip to the desert as vice president at Easter 1974. I asked about the family of Leonard Firestone, his neighbor and dear friend, who owned the home where we were now sitting.
“Well, Leonard passed away. His wife at that time was never a good friend of ours. We disliked her. He had two previous wives that we knew; both died of cancer. We liked them very much. The third wife was very aggressive. Of course, one of his grandchildren was in TV. He was with ten women, or whatever it was.”
“One of those reality shows?”
“Yeah. We thought Leonard would roll over in his grave.”
Morbidly, that reminded me that I hadn’t asked him what he’d heard about President Reagan’s medical condition.
“Not good, no. Betty talks to Nancy; I have very limited conversations with her, but she’s having a very difficult time. His health is obviously not getting better; it’s tragic that he hangs on.
“Well, Tom, speaking of leaders—I’ve had the exposure to all of the recent world leaders during my life. The Chinese: Mao Tse-tung, Teng Hsiao-p’ing, Chou En-lai. Sadat, Rabin, Callaghan, Valéry Giscard [d’Estaing], Schmidt. What a blessing to have had that exposure and to have had that involvement. I was just lucky as the devil.”
It had been a long trip from Omaha, I observed.
“It’s a long way from Grand Rapids,” he corrected me politely. Omaha was his birthplace; Grand Rapids would always be home, even in perpetuity.
“I’ve had several opportunities to write another book, but the truth is I’m too lazy at this age, at ninety. To write a really good book takes a lot of time.”
Wrapping up our visit, we chatted randomly about old friends and acquaintances.
“I’ll tell you who’s a big asset to the president, and that’s Laura. She was down here for an event down at Annenberg’s, and we were invited. She is a very nice lady—articulate, attractive, well mannered. She just is classy. I know they’re using her to raise money; she is an asset.
“Let me finish with another good-news thing. Dick Nixon and I were longtime close friends. I mean, for years. Every time he wrote a book, he gave me a copy with an inscription. Dear Jerry, whatever, whatever. The other night we were at dinner with some guy who was connected with one of the New York book companies. I don’t know whether you’d call it a publishing company, but he’s knowledgeable about books. And I don’t know whether you know it or not, but every Sunday in the New York Times they have a book review, and there’s a company that publishes the value of books on the back page. Well, I had Shelli, one of my secretaries, check with this company and this friend that I had learned, because I’ve got eight of Nixon’s books here, and all of them have an inscription. Dear Jerry, something, something, something. I said to Shelli, find out what they’re worth. They came back and said a minimum of $7,500. So if you’ve got any book that Nixon autographed, inscribed, don’t throw ’em away. I’m gonna give two each to the children. I’m torn between keeping them intact or giving them to the children, and I’ve finally decided it would be nicer to have the children have them.”
That gave me an opening to steer him back to Nixon and his efforts at rehabilitation, a subject we’d broached many times.
“Oh, I think he’s gradually being enhanced. His downfall was Haldeman and Ehrlichman and Colson. They were a terrible disaster.”
“Yeah, but they didn’t lead him to tape conversations.”
“They sort of got him in the wrong direction. He wasn’t smart enough to detect their being a liability.”
Had they played to his insecurities?
“Vanity—no question about that, Tom.”
“Probably his paranoia,” I interjected. “I always felt Nixon felt he had a lot of people out to get him.”
“There’s no doubt about that.”
“But not you?”
A wistful tone crept into his voice, as though he was remembering days that had altered his life forever.
“No,” he replied softly, adding that Nixon had never questioned his loyalty.
“No. Never. In fact, he trusted me implicitly.”
Ford was never the world’s greatest anecdotalist, but I was always scrounging around for a new tidbit from the Watergate era. So I asked if Nixon had ever given him a secret assignment that history didn’t know about. He said no—then, no doubt trying to be helpful, embellished an interesting fact from his memoirs that I’d forgotten.
“I remember when Mel Laird called me and said, ‘Would you take the vice presidency?’ Betty and I were having a martini, and I said let me check with Betty, and we said, ‘Tell him to go ahead.’
“He was torn between Reagan, Rockefeller, and Connally, and he couldn’t get any of them confirmed; the conservatives wouldn’t take Rockefeller, liberals wouldn’t take Reagan, and Connally was in the milk scandal. So as a bad fourth choice, he picked me.”
Did he think Nixon regretted it?
Typical Ford humility: “I hope not.”
I asked him to flash back to that famous scene on the South Lawn of the White House, when he and Betty had walked the Nixons to their helicopter to begin the long journey to exile in San Clemente. I wanted to know what they’d said to each other as they shook hands at that epic moment of triumph and tragedy—triumph for democracy, tragedy for the Nixons.
“I think I said to him, ‘Dick, I’m sorry about this. You did a good job.’ It was a plus [comment]; I wanted to bolster his spirits.”
What had Nixon said to his old Chowder and Marching Society comrade?
“‘Good luck, Jerry,’ or something to that effect. There was no bitterness between him and me. None whatsoever. It was a sad day, though.
“Watergate, the war in Vietnam, the economy problems—we went through a helluva period.”