Gerald Rudolph Ford
1974-1977
How He Becomes President
- When entered office he was suspected of being a dim-witted former football player
- Johnson had sneered that he was not smart
- Selected not elected as vice president because of Spiro Agnew's resignation
- Granted a complete pardon for Nixon's crimes after the Watergate break-in which enraged Democrats
- Sought to enhance the détente with the Soviet Union though it was difficult but he took it seriously
End of the Vietnam War
- Ford also admitted South Vietnamese refugees into the US (creating even more diversity in America)
- "Ended not with a bang but with a whimper"
- Technically Americans did not lose the war, South Vietnam lost the war
- US had fought the North Vietnamese but then withdrew the troops in 1973 leaving the South Vietnamese to fight their own war with American aid/shipments
- US provided everything to the Vietnamese except the will to win
- American power and pride after the Vietnam War