Word: forde
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...Voters were unwilling to forgive Gerald Ford for his great act of forgiveness, the unconditional pardon of Richard Nixon. But there was another side to the pardon, the presidency and the 1976 campaign that received much less attention, in part because Ford wanted it that way. The contest between Ford and Jimmy Carter was a battle between two born-again Christians - but only one was willing...
...Ford's faith was ignited in Grand Rapids, Mich., a center of Dutch Calvinist congregations so strict that even in the late 1950s there were arguments over whether it was appropriate to read the newspaper on the Sabbath. Ford's upbringing was more relaxed. Some Sunday afternoons, he recalled, "I'd just go out and play baseball. Of course, some of my Dutch friends weren't allowed to do that." As a young Michigan Congressman, he met a gospel-film executive named Billy Zeoli who came by Ford's office and gave him a Bible. Over the next few years...
...Among their bonds was a love of sports: Ford had been an All-American football player, and Zeoli created a ministry for professional athletes. It was at a pregame "football chapel," Zeoli says, that Ford renewed his personal commitment to Christ. Zeoli was holding a service at a Washington-area Marriott hotel for the Dallas Cowboys, in town to play the Redskins. Ford, who was then the Republican minority leader in Congress, came to hear his friend preach on "God's Game Plan." Ford was especially moved by the sermon and hung around to talk with Zeoli privately afterward about...
...Living in Palm Springs, Calif., where the Betty Ford Clinic for addiction rehabilitation is located, the ex-President filled his private life with golf and lucrative board memberships (Shearson/American Express, the Beneficial Corporation of New Jersey, 20th Century Fox). He also shared a number of investments with millionaire Leonard Firestone. In 1996 BusinessWeek said Ford's personal fortune stood at roughly $300 million...
...Ford had been a different sort of public figure, the profits he reaped from his ex-presidency would have provoked an outcry. But the public had never perceived him as devious or venal; he was still, to a degree unique in recent presidential history, one of the people...