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Closing the Chapter on Watergate Wasn't Done Lightly
Within a month of taking office in 1974, President Gerald R. Ford granted former president Richard Nixon "a full, free and absolute pardon." Ford was unprepared for the public outcry.
(Associated Press)
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After resigning, Nixon asked to have the materials shipped to his home in California. Traditionally, a former president owned all his papers. But Becker immediately saw that returning them to Nixon would make Ford complicit in hiding the truth.
"You will be writing the history of your presidency in the first weeks," Becker told Ford, "and history is going to say Jerry Ford participated in the final act of the Watergate coverup."
Ford authorized Becker to ensure the government would retain the tapes. "That history must be preserved," Ford said. "Do whatever you have to do. . . . I'm not shipping that stuff out."
Becker worked out an arrangement in which Nixon and the government had joint custody of the tapes for 10 years. Congress and the courts eventually saw that the tapes were preserved.
But Becker also returned to Washington with concerns about the health of Nixon, whom Ford still considered a friend. Nixon was "more depressed than any person I've ever seen," Becker reported. "I really have serious questions in my mind whether that man is going to be alive at the time of the election."
"Well," Ford noted, "1976 is a long time away."
"I don't mean 1976," Becker said. "I mean 1974." Congressional elections were two months away.
As Ford reviewed the pardon statement the morning of Sept. 8, with a felt-tip pen, he inserted a phrase saying the threat of prosecution hung "like a sword over our former President's head, threatening his health."
Hartmann, who was in the Oval Office that morning, had been pushing Ford to delay the pardon, to allow more time to pass.
"You know, if I decided to do it and then something happened to him and I hadn't done it because I was just waiting for a better time," Ford said to Hartmann, "I would never be able to forgive myself."
A Nation's Outrage
The new president had misjudged the mood of the country. Rather than sympathy, the public and the media voiced outrage at the pardon. It seemed to be totally on Nixon's terms -- early, complete and without acknowledgment that he had committed crimes or even impeachable offenses. Suspicions about a deal surfaced almost immediately.
Ford agreed to testify about his decision before a House subcommittee. His staff went to work preparing his statement.
