Gerald Rudolph Ford Jr. (born Leslie Lynch King Jr.; July 14, 1913 – December 26, 2006) was the 38th president of the United States, serving from 1974 to 1977. He assumed the presidency after the resignation of Richard Nixon, under whom he served as the 40th vice president from 1973 to 1974, after the resignation of Spiro Agnew. A member of the Republican Party, Ford previously served in the United States House of Representatives from 1949 to 1973.
Ford was born in Omaha, Nebraska, and raised in Grand Rapids, Michigan. He attended the University of Michigan, where he played for the university football team, before eventually attending Yale Law School. Afterward, he served in the U.S. Naval Reserve from 1942 to 1946. He was then briefly hired as a business manager for the Grand Rapids Rangers in the Professional Basketball League of America next to head coach Stan Szukala in 1947. Ford was elected to the House of Representatives in 1948 from Michigan's 5th congressional district. He served in this capacity for nearly 25 years, the final nine of them as the House minority leader. During his career in the House, he was also part of the Warren Commission, which investigated the assassination of President John F. Kennedy. In December 1973, two months after the resignation of vice president Agnew, Ford became the first person appointed to the vice presidency under the terms of the 25th Amendment. After President Nixon resigned in August 1974, Ford immediately assumed the presidency.
Domestically, Ford presided over the worst economy in the four decades since the Great Depression, with growing inflation and a recession. His presidency was also overshadowed by the Watergate Scandal. In one of his most controversial acts, he granted a presidential pardon to Nixon for his role in the Watergate scandal. Foreign policy was characterized in procedural terms by the increased role Congress began to play, and by the corresponding curb on the powers of the president. Ford signed the Helsinki Accords, which marked a move toward détente in the Cold War. With the collapse of South Vietnam eight months into his presidency, U.S. involvement in the Vietnam War essentially ended. In the 1976 Republican presidential primary, he narrowly defeated Ronald Reagan for the Republican nomination, but narrowly lost the general election to the Democratic candidate, Jimmy Carter. Ford remains the only person to serve as president without winning a presidential election for president or vice president.
Following his years as president, Ford remained active in the Republican Party, but his moderate views on various social issues increasingly put him at odds with conservative members of the party in the 1990s and early 2000s. He also set aside the enmity he had felt towards Carter following the 1976 election and the two former presidents developed a close friendship. After experiencing a series of health problems, he died at his home in Rancho Mirage, California, in 2006. Surveys of historians and political scientists have ranked Ford as a below-average president, though retrospective public polls on his time in office were more positive.
Ford was born Leslie Lynch King Jr. on July 14, 1913, at 3202 Woolworth Avenue in Omaha, Nebraska, where his parents lived with his paternal grandparents. He was the only child of Dorothy Ayer Gardner and Leslie Lynch King Sr., a wool trader. His paternal grandfather was banker and businessman Charles Henry King, and his maternal grandfather was Illinois politician and businessman Levi Addison Gardner. Ford's parents separated just sixteen days after his birth and his mother took the infant Ford with her to Oak Park, Illinois, where her sister Tannisse and brother-in-law Clarence Haskins James lived at 410 N. Humphrey Ave. From there, she moved to the home of her parents in Grand Rapids, Michigan. Gardner and King divorced in December 1913, and she gained full custody of their son. Ford's paternal grandfather paid child support until shortly before his death in 1930.
Ford later said that his biological father had a history of hitting his mother. In a biography of Ford, James M. Cannon wrote that the separation and divorce of Ford's parents was sparked when, a few days after Ford's birth, Leslie King took a butcher knife and threatened to kill his wife, infant son, and Ford's nursemaid. Ford later told confidants that his father had first hit his mother when she had smiled at another man during their honeymoon.
After living with her parents for two and a half years, on February 1, 1917, Gardner married Gerald Rudolff Ford, a salesman in a family-owned paint and varnish company. Though never formally adopted, her young son was referred to as Gerald Rudolff Ford Jr. from then on; the name change, including the anglicized spelling "Rudolph", was formalized on December 3, 1935. He was raised in what is now East Grand Rapids with his three half-brothers from his mother's second marriage: Thomas Gardner "Tom" Ford (1918–1995), Richard Addison "Dick" Ford (1924–2015), and James Francis "Jim" Ford (1927–2001).
Ford attended Madison Elementary School from 1918 to 1925. He briefly transferred to East Grand Rapids Elementary School while his family lived nearby. He was involved in the Boy Scouts of America, and earned that program's highest rank, Eagle Scout in August 1927. He is the only Eagle Scout to serve as president. Ford attended Grand Rapids South High School, where he was a star athlete and captain of the football team, before graduating in 1931. In 1930, he was selected to the All-City team of the Grand Rapids City League. He also attracted the attention of college recruiters.
Ford attended the University of Michigan, where he played center and linebacker for the school's football team and helped the Wolverines to two undefeated seasons and national titles in 1932 and 1933. In his senior year of 1934, the team suffered a steep decline and won only one game, but Ford was still the team's star player. In one of those games, Michigan held heavily favored Minnesota—the eventual national champion—to a scoreless tie in the first half. After the game, assistant coach Bennie Oosterbaan said, "When I walked into the dressing room at halftime, I had tears in my eyes I was so proud of them. Ford and [Cedric] Sweet played their hearts out. They were everywhere on defense." Ford later recalled, "During 25 years in the rough-and-tumble world of politics, I often thought of the experiences before, during, and after that game in 1934. Remembering them has helped me many times to face a tough situation, take action, and make every effort possible despite adverse odds." His teammates later voted Ford their most valuable player, with one assistant coach noting, "They felt Jerry was one guy who would stay and fight in a losing cause."
During Ford's senior year, a controversy developed when Georgia Tech said that it would not play a scheduled game with Michigan if a Black player named Willis Ward took the field. Students, players and alumni protested, but university officials capitulated and kept Ward out of the game. Ford was Ward's best friend on the team, and they roomed together while on road trips. Ford reportedly threatened to quit the team in response to the university's decision, but he eventually agreed to play against Georgia Tech when Ward personally asked him to play.
In 1934, Ford was selected for the Eastern Team in the Shriners' East–West Shrine Game at San Francisco (a benefit for physically disabled children), played on January 1, 1935. As part of the 1935 Collegiate All-Star football team, Ford played against the Chicago Bears in the Chicago College All-Star Game at Soldier Field. In honor of his athletic accomplishments and his later political career, the University of Michigan retired Ford's No. 48 jersey in 1994. With the blessing of the Ford family, it was placed back into circulation in 2012 as part of the Michigan Football Legends program and issued to sophomore linebacker Desmond Morgan before a home game against Illinois on October 13.