Skip to main content

Nothing To Apologize For

April 2023
1min read

Richard Reeves’s apologia brings to mind the poet Robert Lowel’s observation that “one has a thousand opportunities to misrevise. A little ground is gained for the more that is lost.”

Mr. Reeves had it right the first time he wrote on the subject of the pardon: The episode served to symbolize to the American public the ultimate escape route from the criminal justice system available to an imperial President bent on avoiding personal responsibility for his actions—if he could enlist the allegiance of his chosen successor. Thanks to Gerald Ford, the scheme worked.

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 "May/june 1997"

Authored by: Frederic D. Schwarz

Five Hundred Years Ago

Authored by: Frederic D. Schwarz

Three Hundred and Fifty Years Ago

Authored by: Frederic D. Schwarz

Two Hundred and Twenty-five Years Ago

Authored by: Frederic D. Schwarz

One Hundred Years Ago

Authored by: Frederic D. Schwarz

Seventy-five Years Ago

Authored by: Frederic D. Schwarz

Fifty Years Ago

Authored by: John Leonard

He took vaudeville, Broadway, the tabloids, and, with his strange, gray, tongue-tied genius, melded them into a working model of a better America

Authored by: Harry Matthei

THE IMPERIUM OF modern television advertising was born in desperate improvisation

Authored by: Steven D. Stark

What you don’t remember about the day JFK was shot

Authored by: Harry Miles Muheim

The trouble with having (and being) a hero

Featured Articles

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. 

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. 

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.