IS THERE A PRESIDENT IN THE HOUSE? (PART IX)

Nixon was followed in office by his Vice President, Gerald R. Ford. Ford is the only All-American athlete to serve as President. He played for the University of Michigan and was even offered a pro football contract, which he declined. After law school, Ford served in the Navy during World War II, being discharged as a lieutenant commander. He served aboard the USS Monterrey, a light aircraft carrier assigned to Admiral Halsey’s Third Fleet, as an athletic director, gunnery officer and eventually the assistant navigator. He earned ten battle stars during the war.

After the war, Ford returned to his law practice in Michigan and ran for a seat in the House of Representatives as a Republican in 1948. He upset the isolationist Representative Bartel J. Jonkman in the Republican primary, and defeated the Democratic candidate, Fred J. Barr, in the general election by a vote of 74,191-46,972. Ford was re-elected twelve times, never with less than 60% of the vote.

In the House, Ford served on the Public Works Committee and the powerful Appropriations Committee. He gained prominence as a member of the Defense Appropriations Subcommittee, and became its ranking minority member in 1961. During the Truman administration, Ford built a moderately conservative voting record, internationalist in foreign affairs and conservative on domestic issues. He supported the Marshall Plan, aid to underdeveloped countries and increases in defense spending. He voted against the repeal of the Taft-Hartley Act and a minimum wage increase. In 1952, Ford became an early supporter of Dwight D. Eisenhower for the Republican Presidential nomination. Ford later said that his only real regret from this period was his failure to speak out against the anti-Communist witch-hunt of Senator Joseph McCarthy.

Ford was a personal friend of Vice President Richard Nixon dating back to their service together in the House of Representatives in the late 1940s. Ford defended Nixon when some Republicans wanted to drop Nixon from the ticket in 1956, and was an early backer of Nixon for the Republican Presidential nomination in 1960.

In 1961, Ford was awarded the Distinguished Service Award from the American Political Science Association. The citation commended his “diligent application to committee work and mastery of highly complex defense matters” and referred to him as a “Congressman’s Congressman.” In 1963, the “Young Turks” in the House Republicans ousted the chairman of the House Republican Conference, Iowa Representative Charles Hoeven, and elected Ford to the position. Later that year, Ford was one of two House members appointed by President Johnson to the Warren Commission investigating the assassination of President John F. Kennedy. Ford completely supported the findings of the Warren Commission that Lee Harvey Oswald acted alone, and along with Warren Commission special assistant John R. Stiles, published his own supporting conclusions in a book entitled “Portrait of an Assassin” in 1965.

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