A Busy Day for President Ford

Gerald Ford entered the White House under some of the most unusual circumstances in the history of the nation. After President Richard Nixon’s vice-president, Spiro Agnew, resigned, House Minority Leader Ford was nominated to take his place. Little did he know that he’d soon be assuming the presidency as well. With so many tasks before him, large and small, here’s a look back at one day 50 years ago where the new president had to fill some jobs, including his old one.

On August 1, 1974, Ford received some startling information from President Nixon’s chief of staff, Alexander Haig. Haig let Ford know that a damning recording related to the Watergate scandal would soon become public. It was apparent that the only two courses of action within the government were going to be an impeachment or a resignation, and either way, Ford should be ready to ascend to the presidency under the 25th Amendment. The tape went public on August 5; Nixon gave a televised speech to the nation on August 8 in which he announced his resignation, effective the next day. Ford assumed the presidency on August 9; he was sworn in with the oath of office in the East Room of the White House with Chief Justice Warren Burger presiding.

The situation was already rife with historic import. Ford was president, but hadn’t been elected to either the vice presidency or the presidency. That was the first (and thus far only) time that’s happened in the history of the United States. However, it was a brilliant demonstration of the system actually working. The 25th Amendment had codified how presidential and vice presidential replacements worked, and it was followed to the letter without unrest. Ford, ironically, by not being elected, became one of the best examples that democracy worked.

As the new guy in the big chair, Ford had to set about a number of important pieces of business. The major question, of course, was: Who would be his vice-president? Within the Republican party, there was a clear consensus. The majority wanted George H.W. Bush. A decorated pilot, a former member of the House of Representatives, a U.S. ambassador to the United Nations, and Chairman of the Republican National Committee, Bush had more bona fides that just about anyone else. However, there was also support for former New York Governor Nelson Rockefeller. Rockefeller had also served in the administrations of FDR and Dwight Eisenhower and campaigned for the Republican presidential nomination on three occasions. If you look at Rockefeller’s list of positions, particularly on the environment, he’d probably be considered left-leaning by the standards of today.

On August 20, 1974, Ford opted to nominate Rockefeller for the vice presidency and offered Bush a role as chief of the U.S. liaison office in the People’s Republic of China. That essentially made Bush the U.S. ambassador to China (formal ambassadorship would resume in 1979). Bush accepted, and would later serve as Ford’s director of the Central Intelligence Agency beginning in 1976. Rockefeller’s nomination to the vice presidency was approved and confirmed by Congress, and he assumed the role on December 19.

The other significant move that Ford made on August 20, 1974, was an ambassadorial appointment. It became a subject of national interest because the appointee had been perhaps the most famous child star in American history. For the post of ambassador to Ghana, Ford nominated Shirley Temple Black. Known for her prodigious film and television career that began when she signed her first deal at age 4 in 1932, Shirley Temple sang, danced, and acted her way through shorts, films, and radio until her formal film retirement in 1950. That was the same year she married her second husband, businessman Charles Alden Black. She continued to work in TV in the late 1950s and early 1960s.

Later in the 1960s, Shirley Temple Black got active in California politics, running unsuccessfully for Congress in 1967. President Nixon appointed her as a delegate to the U.N. General Assembly in 1969. She had already impressed the administration, including Henry Kissinger, with her knowledge of West Africa. For Ford, it was an easy choice, even if some Americans had a hard time squaring the image of the curly-haired girl with the sharply intelligent diplomat she’d become.

As it turned out, Ford’s appointments, and presidency overall, didn’t last that long. He was defeated in the 1976 election by Georgia governor Jimmy Carter. However, his legacy remained as a person who was instrumental in maintaining the balance of power in the United States in a time of great turmoil. And while Bush may not have made it to the second-highest office in the land in 1974, he would get there in 1980 (as running mate to Ronald Reagan) before winning the presidency himself in 1988. Sometimes even busy historical days are also just history deferred.