Fifty years ago, America was riveted by a controversial pardon. But unlike President Joe Biden’s self-serving exoneration of his son Hunter Biden, this pardon actually served the nation. It was a decision made by an accidental chief executive. Gerald Ford never wanted to be president. He aspired, instead, to be speaker of the House and was working his way up in the leadership ranks in the people’s chamber. But history would intervene, and he would be sworn in as the 38th president of the United States.
Born Leslie Lynch King Jr. to an alcoholic, abusive, and absent father, the future leader was adopted by his stepfather and later assumed his name. He was a standout athlete at his Grand Rapids, Mich., high school and went on to play college football and major in economics at the University of Michigan followed by Yale Law School. After Pearl Harbor, Ford entered the Navy and worked his way up to lieutenant commander before returning to Michigan. He ran for Congress as a Republican in 1948, a year when Democrat Harry Truman shocked the nation and won the presidential election.
Ford quickly became a leader in the House and during his 16 terms served in several important roles, including on the Warren Commission that investigated the assassination of President John F. Kennedy. In 1965, he became House minority leader, a job he relished. Ford would have continued in Congress his entire life had not a series of events conspired to bring him into the White House.
In 1967, in response to the assassination of Kennedy and the illnesses of President Dwight Eisenhower while in office, Congress passed and the states ratified the 25th Amendment to the U.S. Constitution. Before this, it was tradition, though not entirely clear in the Constitution, that the sitting vice president would succeed the president upon his death. But beyond that, the lines were blurred. The urgency of the need for the 25th Amendment also was apparent during the height of the Cold War when a lack of clarity of presidential succession threatened America’s stability,
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