A Fighting First Lady

In the White House, President and Mrs. Ford were watching the late evening news recently when a funereal chorus of seven black-clad women appeared on the screen. "Betty Ford," they intoned, "will be remembered as the unelected First Lady who pressured second-rate manhood on American women." The mummery was yet another attack upon Mrs. Ford for her enthusiastic lobbying on behalf of the Equal Rights Amendment, which would guarantee women equality with men under the law. But the self-possessed First Lady was hardly unnerved. "I went to bed laughing," she said. "Jerry did too."

Despite mail running 3 to 1 against her feminist standard bearing, Mrs. Ford says that she is determined "to keep on plugging." The ERA, which has been ratified by 34 states since it was approved by Congress in 1972, is still four states short of the necessary three-fourths majority. To speed up this sluggish process and increase the amendment's chance of ratification, Betty Ford has taken to the telephone with a zeal for public fray not seen in the White House since Eleanor Roosevelt.

Exact Number. The controversy began in late January when Mrs. Ford wrote to State Representative William Kretschmar, thanking him for leading the fight for the ERA in North Dakota's house--a letter that Kretschmar says he used effectively in bringing off a victory. Pleased by the success, she then placed calls to state legislators in Illinois, where the ERA finally got out of committee; to Nevada, where it was subsequently passed by the assembly but defeated in the senate; and to Missouri, where the amendment was passed in the house. A call to Old Friend Barry Goldwater, however, proved unavailing; Arizona's senate voted against the amendment last month. "I'm not trying to twist anyone's arm," says Mrs. Ford. "All I'm asking them is to consider the merits."

In rebuttal to Mrs. Ford, a group of conservative women recently picketed the White House with placards reading: BETTY FORD, GET OFF THE PHONE. But there are the rewards, including this confession from a political wife: "No American has the right to ask another to silence her opinions--even if that person is her husband and a politician. I have fought for this right with my husband--at times with success. You are setting an example for me to continue that fight."

Fortunately, Betty Ford has not had that particular problem. Her husband gives every indication of pride in her enterprise. Hearing about the anti-Betty pickets outside the White House, he responded with a good-natured display of liberated gallantry: "Fine," he declared. "Let them demonstrate against you. It takes the heat off me."

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