Word: heals
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Anxious to heal the rift with Congress, Ford and Kissinger briefed nine senior Congressmen at breakfast the next day on Chile and covert affairs in general. Later, at a previously scheduled hearing on détente, Kissinger reiterated before the Senate Foreign Relations Committee that the intent of the CIA operation in Chile was merely to keep the Allende opposition alive and "not to destabilize or subvert" his government. Kissinger also conducted two separate briefings at the Senate. Still, Congress was neither convinced nor mollified. As the week progressed, growing numbers of Representatives and Senators called for an all-out review...
...Healing the nation's wounds" seems to be the great slogan of the highly-touted "post-Watergate era." The events of the last few weeks--the pardon of Nixon, the refusal of amnesty, Ford's defense of the CIA in Chile and appeals for aid to Thieu--show how selectively President Ford means this policy. But even at its best it wouldn't be enough. A patient with a malignant tumor doesn't worry first about wounds made by the surgeon's knife: those wounds will heal by themselves, when the tumor is gone. The slogans of the pre-Watergate...
Probably the most widespread continuing reaction, however, was one of disappointment in Ford, who had moved so swiftly to heal the nation's wounds caused by Watergate and the Viet Nam War. Now, unfairly but inevitably, his previously announced intention of seeking leniency for draft evaders and war deserters was seen by many as a calculated move to make a Nixon pardon more palatable. Those somewhat jesting earlier cracks about Ford's intellect were now reviewed in a more serious light. How could he have failed to perceive the ramifications?legal, political and moral?of his decision...
...this principle a serious blow. What are we now to do about John Mitchell, who may have already suffered as much as Richard Nixon and is still being prosecuted, or with the other underlings who, as far as anyone can tell, really executed orders from above? This effort to heal the wounds of Watergate has inflamed the existing and far more serious wounds in the principle of equality before the law. Even if one decided to achieve some equality by pardoning all of those who are accused of doing the President's bidding, there stand thousands of others accused...
More than that, the President added, the "serious allegations and accusations hang like a sword over our former President's head and threaten his health as he tries to reshape his life." Most important, Ford hoped that the pardon would help heal the nation. Any move to bring Nixon to trial, the President noted, would have taken many months or years. During that period "ugly passions would again be aroused, our people would again be polarized in their opinions, and the credibility of our free institutions of Government would again be challenged at home and abroad...