Gerald Rudolph Ford, Jr., the 38th and only unelected president in America's history, has died, his wife, Betty, said Tuesday. He was 93. "My family joins me in sharing the difficult news that Gerald Ford, our beloved husband, father, grandfather and great grandfather has passed away at 93 years of age," Mrs. Ford said in a brief statement issued from her husband's office in Rancho Mirage. "His life was filled with love of God, his family and his country."He was born Leslie King on July 14, 1913, in Omaha, Neb. His parents were divorced when he was less than a year old, and his mother returned to her parents in Grand Rapids, where she later married Gerald R. Ford Sr. He adopted the boy and renamed him.
Ford studied at the University of Michigan where he also played center on the football team. He was on the University of Michigan's 1932 National Championship football team and was named most valuable Michigan player in 1933. After receiving his Bachelor of Arts in economics in 1935, Ford went to Yale University as an assistant football and boxing coach instead of accepting pro football offers. Accepted into Yale Law School in 1938, Ford received his law degree in 1941. Returning to Grand Rapids, Ford started a law practice with fellow classmate from the University of Michigan. However, the attack on Pearl Harbor changed his plans.
Ford volunteered and joined the Navy. He was commisioned as ensign in the U.S. Naval Reserve on 13 April 1942 and on April 20 reported for active duty. During the one year he was at the Preflight School, he was promoted to Lieutenant Junior Grade on 2 June 1942, and to Lieutenant on March 1943. He was released from active duty under honorable conditions on 23 February 1946. For his naval service, Gerald Ford earned the Asiatic-Pacific Campaign Medal with nine engagement stars for operations in the Gilbert Islands, Bismark Archipelego, Marshal Islands, Asiatic and Pacific carrier raids, Hollandia, Marianas, Western Carolines, Western New Guinea, and the Leyte Operation. He also received the Philippine Liberation with two bronze stars for Leyte and Mindoro, as well as the American Campaign and World War II Victory Medals.
Republican Ford defeated the incumbent in the party primary and was elected to the United States House of Representatives in 1948, representing the Grand Rapids, Michigan area. He was elected House Minority Leader in 1963 and served in the House until 1973. When Spiro Agnew resigned, Ford became the first vice president appointed under the 25th amendment to the Constitution.
In 1974, Ford, who had never run on a national ticket, took the office of President minutes after Nixon flew off into exile. "My fellow Americans," he said, "our long national nightmare is over. Our Constitution works. Our great republic is a government of laws and not of men. Here the people rule." He then added: "I am acutely aware that you have not elected me as your president by your ballots. So I ask you to confirm me with your prayers." He was in the White House only 895 days.
But he revived the debate a month later by granting Nixon a pardon for all crimes he committed as president. That single act, it was widely believed, cost Ford election to a term of his own in 1976, but it won praise in later years as a courageous act that allowed the nation to move on. The decision to pardon Nixon won Ford a John F. Kennedy Profile in Courage Award in 2001, and Sen. Edward M. Kennedy, acknowledging he had criticized Ford at the time, called the pardon "an extraordinary act of courage that historians recognize was truly in the national interest."
He was the longest living president, followed by Ronald Reagan, who also died at 93. Ford had been living at his desert home in Rancho Mirage, Calif., about 130 miles east of Los Angeles.
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