Gerald Rudolph Ford, Jr., né sous le nom de Leslie Lynch King, Jr. le 14 juillet 1913 à Omaha et mort le 26 décembre 2006 à Rancho Mirage , est un homme d'État américain, président des États-Unis du 9 août 1974 au 20 janvier 1977.
Il occupe, pendant vingt-quatre ans, le siège du cinquième district du Michigan à la Chambre des représentants des États-Unis et assume la charge de chef de l'opposition républicaine pendant une période de domination démocrate entre 1965 et 1973.
À la suite de la démission de Spiro Agnew, en décembre 1973, il est nommé vice-président des États-Unis par Richard Nixon, dans les dispositions prévues par le vingt-cinquième amendement de la Constitution américaine. L'année suivante, après la démission de Richard Nixon, mis en cause dans le scandale du Watergate, il devient président des États-Unis.
Son mandat présidentiel est marqué par la guerre froide et les conséquences du premier choc pétrolier. Gerald Ford intervient moins que ses prédécesseurs dans les affaires du Viêt Nam et signe, en 1975, les accords d'Helsinki dans le cadre de la CSCE, qui favorisent la détente avec l'URSS. Durant son mandat, le Congrès prend une importance croissante dans les affaires internationales, alors que le rôle du président s'amoindrit. En politique intérieure, il prend la décision controversée d'accorder la grâce présidentielle à Richard Nixon après le scandale du Watergate et, sur le plan économique, doit faire face à la récession et à l'inflation. Il échappe par ailleurs à deux tentatives d'assassinat au cours de sa présidence.
Après avoir été investi par le Parti républicain face à Ronald Reagan, il est battu de justesse par le démocrate Jimmy Carter lors de l'élection présidentielle de 1976, l'une des plus serrées de l'histoire américaine. À ce jour, Gerald Ford reste le seul président des États-Unis à n'avoir jamais été élu ni au poste de vice-président, ni à celui de président,. Après sa défaite, il reste une figure active du Parti républicain et meurt d'une crise cardiaque à l'âge de 93 ans et 165 jours, ce qui fait alors de lui le 3e président américain ayant vécu le plus longtemps, après Jimmy Carter et George H. W. Bush.
Wikipedia
“There is no Soviet domination of Eastern Europe”
and there never will be under a Ford administration... The United States does not concede that those countries are under the domination of the Soviet Union.
Gaffe in the television debate with Jimmy Carter (6 October 1976)
1970s
1970s, Remarks on pardoning Nixon (1974)
Contexte: I have come to a decision which I felt I should tell you and all of my fellow American citizens, as soon as I was certain in my own mind and in my own conscience that it is the right thing to do.
I have learned already in this office that the difficult decisions always come to this desk. I must admit that many of them do not look at all the same as the hypothetical questions that I have answered freely and perhaps too fast on previous occasions.
My customary policy is to try and get all the facts and to consider the opinions of my countrymen and to take counsel with my most valued friends. But these seldom agree, and in the end, the decision is mine. To procrastinate, to agonize, and to wait for a more favorable turn of events that may never come or more compelling external pressures that may as well be wrong as right, is itself a decision of sorts and a weak and potentially dangerous course for a President to follow.
I have promised to uphold the Constitution, to do what is right as God gives me to see the right, and to do the very best that I can for America.
“We have come tardily to the tremendous task of cleaning up our environment.”
Earth Day address, Grand Rapids, Michigan (22 April 1970); published in Gerald R. Ford, Selected Speeches (1973) edited by Michael V. Doyle <!-- p. 84 -->
1970s
Contexte: We have come tardily to the tremendous task of cleaning up our environment. We should have moved with similar zeal at least a decade ago. But no purpose is served by post-mortems. With visionary zeal but the greatest realism, we must now address ourselves to the vast problems that confront us.
1970s, Proclamation 4417 (1976)
Variante: I call upon the American people to affirm with me this American Promise -- that we have learned from the tragedy of that long-ago experience forever to treasure liberty and justice for each individual American, and resolve that this kind of action shall never again be repeated.
Address to the 75th annual convention of the Veterans of Foreign Wars, Chicago, Illinois (19 August 1974)
1970s
Remarks about the Committee to Re-elect the President, as quoted in The New York Times (31 March 1974)
1970s
Address to a joint session of Congress (August 12, 1974); in Public Papers of the Presidents of the United States: Gerald R. Ford, 1974, pp. 6–7
1970s, Address to Congress (12 August 1974)
1970s, Proclamation 4417 (1976)
Quoted variant: History and experience tell us that moral progress comes not in comfortable and complacent times, but out of trial and confusion.
1970s, State of the Union Address (1975)
Dedication speech at the World Golf Hall of Fame, Pinehurst North Carolina, as quoted in The New York Times (12 September 1974)
1970s
1970s, Proclamation 4417 (1976)
“He's the smartest guy in Congress, but he insists on voting his conscience instead of party.”
Remarks about John B. Anderson in 1973, later quoted in an Anderson 1980 Presidential campaign ad http://www.livingroomcandidate.org/commercials/1980/john-anderson
1970s
Address at Yale Law School's 150th anniversary (25 April 1975) http://www.presidency.ucsb.edu/ws/index.php?pid=4869
1970s
Conference of the International Association of Police Chiefs http://www.mcjackie.com/cobb.html (24 September 1974).
1970s
“The length of one's days matters less than the love of one's family and friends.”
Statement just before becoming the longest lived U.S. President as quoted in "Ford eclipses Reagan as oldest ex-president" in USA Today (10 November 2006) http://www.usatoday.com/news/washington/2006-11-10-ford_x.htm
2000s
Speech to the International Eucharistic Conference, Philadelphia, Pennsylvania as quoted in the Los Angeles Herald-Examiner (13 August 1976)
1970s
As quoted by TIME magazine (28 January 1974)
1970s
Speech to the International Eucharistic Conference, Philadelphia, Pennsylvania as quoted in the Los Angeles Herald-Examiner (13 August 1976)
1970s
Presidential address to a joint session of Congress (12 August 1974)
Ford has also been quoted as having made a similar statement many years earlier, as a representative to the US Congress: "If the government is big enough to give you everything you want, it is big enough to take away everything you have."
"If Elected, I Promise…" : Stories and Gems of Wisdom by and About Politicians (1960) p. 193
Similar assertions have often been attributed to Barry Goldwater and Ronald Reagan. Some of the inspiration for such expressions may lie in "The Criminality of the State" by Albert Jay Nock in American Mercury (March 1939) where he stated: "You get the same order of criminality from any State to which you give power to exercise it; and whatever power you give the State to do things for you carries with it the equivalent power to do things to you."
1970s, Address to Congress (12 August 1974)
1970s, Address to Congress (12 August 1974)
1970s, Remarks on pardoning Nixon (1974)
1970s, Address to Congress (12 August 1974)
“I would hope that understanding and reconciliation are not limited to the 19th hole alone.”
Dedication speech at the World Golf Hall of Fame, Pinehurst North Carolina, as quoted in The New York Times (12 September 1974)
1970s
Remarks to the National Restaurant Association, in Chicago, Illinois (28 May 1978)
1970s
“Richard Nixon… was just offered $2 million by Schick to do a television commercial — for Gillette.”
Remarks at a "Humor and the Presidency Symposium", Ford Museum, Grand Rapids Michigan, as quoted in US magazine (3 November 1986)
1980s
1970s, First Presidential address (1974)
1970s, Proclamation 4417 (1976)
