Word: pardon
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Dates: during 1970-1979
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Throughout the most painful week of Gerald Ford's fledgling presidency, public protest continued to batter the White House. Far from easing after the first shock of Ford's precipitate pardon of Richard Nixon for any and all federal crimes committed during his presidency, the controversy grew. It was fed partly by Ford's refusal to explain further his mysterious reversal on his Executive intervention, partly by White House fumbling on whether all the other Watergate offenders might also be pardoned. Ford's inexperienced aides ?almost all of whom had opposed the timing of the pardon?were left scrambling...
Thus, barely a month into his presidency, Gerald Ford found himself jeered by a crowd of pardon protesters outside a hotel in Pittsburgh, where he addressed a conference on urban transportation. They waved signs bearing such taunts as THE COUNTRY WON'T STAND FOR IT?a mockery of Ford's declaration about a pardon for Nixon, which Ford made during the Senate hearings to confirm him as Vice President. In an otherwise pleasant outing to help dedicate a World Golf Hall of Fame in Pinehurst, N.C., Ford faced more banners: IS NIXON ABOVE THE LAW? and JAIL CROOKS, NOT RESISTERS...
Outside the White House, some 250 pickets from George Washington University lofted a bedsheet with the words PROMISE ME PARDON AND I'LL MAKE YOU PRESIDENT?a reference to a widespread cynical suspicion that Nixon as President had exacted a pledge of a pardon from Ford before naming him Vice President and putting him in the line of succession...
...sharp contrast to the near-universal era of good feeling that characterized Ford's first four weeks in office. A Gallup poll commissioned by the New York Times last week showed an alarming drop in Ford's popularity. From a rating of 71% approval three weeks before the pardon, he had skidded so that only 49% rated him as doing either a "fair" or "good" job. Unlike Nixon's White House aides, Ford's staff reported the extent of adverse telegrams and mail. More than 30,000 comments were received, and they ran about 6 to 1 against Ford...
...asked how the pardon would affect the trial of the Watergate cover-up defendants, Buchen replied: "That is the problem of Mr. Jaworski and the judges." It apparently was Buchen who also proposed the dubious choice of Becker as the intermediary with Nixon's aides. Becker, 36, who had worked in the Justice Department in 1966 and 1967 and was later an Assistant U.S. Attorney in Washington, is under federal investigation for income tax evasion. He had previously helped then-Congressman Ford in his ill-advised attempt to impeach Supreme Court Justice William O. Douglas in 1969. Perhaps the only...