Skip to main content

“a Ford, Not A Lincoln”

March 2023
1min read


ONE PLEASURE IN A rather uncomfortable rereading of my book on Gerald Ford and the events of 1974 and 1975 was a kind of “Where Were They Then.” A few examples:

One of President Ford’s early problems was getting Nixon’s men out of the White House. The most tenacious of them was a junior speechwriter who for nine long weeks ignored requests and demands to leave. He was Father John McLaughlin, a Jesuit priest, who is now among the greatest of television’s political stars.

“He’s the smartest guy in Congress, but he insists on voting his conscience instead of party,” said Ford in rejecting John Anderson of Illinois as his successor as House Republican leader. Six years later Anderson rejected the party and ran for President as an independent.

“No politicians know anything about economics,” a Republican congressman told me in an interview, emphasizing the first word of that sentence. That was Barber Conable, named president of the World Bank in 1986.

“Campaigning gives them the chance to seek and receive attention—all in a worthy cause,” said a Georgetown professor I interviewed about politicians. Her specialty was women in state legislatures, and her name was Jeane J. Kirkpatrick. She became a politician herself for a time.

Much of the secret Nixon-Ford transition papers was written by a young staffer, a Democrat, in the White House Office of Telecommunications. His name was Brian Lamb; he went on to more or less invent C-SPAN cable television and become its president.

—R.R.

We hope you enjoy our work.

Please support this 72-year tradition of trusted historical writing and the volunteers that sustain it with a donation to American Heritage.

Donate

Stories published from "December 1996"

Authored by: Jeff Kisseloff

A HALF-CENTRY AGO Harry Dubin bought his son a camera, and together they made a remarkable series of photographs of a city full of blue-collar workers—all of them Dubin

Authored by: Frederic D. Schwarz

Bedfellows Make Strange Politics

Authored by: Frederic D. Schwarz

Purple Haze

Authored by: The Editors

Land of the Free

Authored by: The Editors

Putsch Comes to Shove

Authored by: Richard Reeves

A VETERAN JOURNALIST reflects on how public discourse has been tarnished by the press’s relentless war against Presidents—including his own biggest offense

Authored by: Robert K. Krick

COMING TO TERMS WITH THE MOST COMPELLING AND MYSTERIOUS OF CIVIL WAR HEROES

Authored by: Stuart Leuthner

ROBERT MOSES built small with the same imperial vigor as he built big, and at his behest the art of making scale-model cities reached its peak. The result still survives, and although few New Yorkers know about it, they can see their whole town—right down to their own houses or apartment buildings—perfectly reproduced.

Authored by: The Editors

AMERICANS have been scaling down their cities for a century and a half

Featured Articles

Rarely has the full story been told about how a famed botanist, a pioneering female journalist, and First Lady Helen Taft battled reluctant bureaucrats to bring Japanese cherry trees to Washington. 

The world’s most prominent actress risked her career by standing up to one of Hollywood’s mega-studios, proving that behind the beauty was also a very savvy businesswoman. 

Often thought to have been a weak president, Carter was strong-willed in doing what he thought was right, regardless of expediency or the political fallout.

Why have thousands of U.S. banks failed over the years? The answers are in our history and politics.

In his Second Inaugural Address, Abraham Lincoln embodied leading in a time of polarization, political disagreement, and differing understandings of reality.