Ford's Memoirs

"The monkey off my back "

He was a "terribly proud man" who detested weakness in other people and often spoke "disparagingly of those whom he felt to be soft and expedient." Indeed, by the end of his presidency, "his pride and personal contempt for weakness had overcome his ability to tell the difference between right and wrong. . . He was out of touch with reality."

So writes Gerald Ford of Richard Nixon in his memoirs, A Time to Heal, which will be published by Harper & Row in late May or June. The Nation magazine obtained a 655-page typescript of the book ("Somebody dropped off a copy," explained Editor Victor Navasky) and printed portions of the work last week.* The sampling contained no major revelations of the Ford years but did add illuminating detail and indicated that Ford has a harsher view of his predecessor than he had previously disclosed.

As Ford testified before a House subcommittee in October 1974, Nixon's chief of staff, Alexander Haig, first suggested to him the possibility of a pardon for Nixon a week before the President resigned. Further, Ford writes, "I did ask Haig about the extent of a President's pardon power." But after being warned by Aide John Marsh that the mention of a pardon in this context was "a time bomb," Ford later read Haig a statement: "I want you to understand that I have no intention of recommending what the President should do about resigning or not resigning and that nothing we talked about yesterday afternoon should be given any consideration in whatever decision the President may wish to make."

Ford recalls that after becoming President, he learned from Watergate Prosecutor Leon Jaworski that the case against Nixon was "wide-ranging" and could "take years" to settle. He feared that Nixon "would not spend time quietly at San Clemente." Says Ford: "It would be virtually impossible for me to direct public attention to anything else ... [At Yale Law School] I learned that public policy often took precedence over rule of law." Consequently, he decided to pardon Nixon "to get the monkey off my back one way or the other." Ford adds: "Compassion for Nixon as an individual hadn't prompted my decision at all."

But first Ford sent Aide Benton Becker to San Clemente to persuade the former President to make a full confession. Becker was met by Nixon Aide Ron Ziegler, who declared: "Let's get one thing straight immediately. President Nixon is not issuing any statement whatsoever regarding Watergate, whether Jerry Ford pardons him or not." Ziegler proposed a statement that Becker turned down; after three more drafts, they agreed on one in which Nixon stopped far short of a full confession. When Becker tried to explain to Nixon that accepting the pardon was an implied confession of guilt, Nixon wanted to talk instead about the Washington Redskins. When Becker left, writes Ford, Nixon pressed on him a pair of cuff links and a tie pin "out of my own jewelry box."

Ford says his first action after being told that Nixon was going to resign was to phone Secretary of State Henry Kissinger. "Henry," said Ford, "I need you. The country needs you. I want you to stay. I'll do everything I can to work with you." Replied Kissinger: "Sir, it is my job to get along with you and not yours to get along with me." Soon afterward, writes Ford, Kissinger talked him out of announcing that he would not run for President in 1976, which was Ford's inclination at the time. Said Kissinger: "You can't reassert the authority of the presidency if you leave yourself hanging out on a dead limb. You've got to be an affirmative President."

Ford relied heavily on Kissinger for advice on foreign affairs, but he was not above listening to even unofficial voices. At the height of the Mayaguez incident, Defense Secretary James Schlesinger was arguing with Kissinger and Ford about whether the U.S. should retaliate with massive air strikes against Cambodia. Suddenly, Photographer David Hume Kennerly, who was photographing the historic moment, asked if anyone had considered that "this might be the act of a local Cambodian commander who has just taken it into his own hands to stop any ship that comes by?" After a moment of silence, Ford writes, that view carried the day, and he ordered only limited air strikes against a handful of Cambodian military targets.

*TlME had owned first magazine publication rights to two chapters of the book.

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