Gerald R. Ford: An Honorable Life

Chapter 15 - Testifying

251 Chapter 15 Testifying From the first moment of Ford’s pardon of Nixon, the question was bound to be asked: had there been a deal? The precipitousness of Ford’s action, one month after Nixon’s resignation; the timing, on a Sunday morning; the secretiveness, after Ford had promised an open Administration ; the muddled explanations from the White House, the deep-­ rooted suspicion of government after years of Presidential duplicity during Vietnam and Watergate—­ all these elements combined to suggest there could have been a deal. Ford confronted that suspicion from the first day. His best Democratic friend, Tip O’Neill, raised the question. Mel Laird, Ford’s close Republican friend, was too dismayed to discuss it at golf that Sunday afternoon. On his first trip after the pardon, to Pittsburgh on Monday, a blue-­ collar worker told White house reporters at the airport: “It was all fixed. Ford said to Nixon: ‘You give me the job. I’ll give you the pardon.’” An official bargain in the public interest—­ Nixon to resign in exchange for a Congressional grant of immunity from prosecution—­ had been responsibly proposed. Five days before Nixon’s resignation a distinguished Constitutional lawyer, William T. Coleman Jr., advocated immunity for resignation on the editorial pages of the New York Times. Three Senators—­ John Tower, Robert Griffin, and Edward Brooke—­ had suggested that the Senate pass a resolution to exempt Nixon from prosecution if he should resign. Special Prosecutor Jaworski supported the proposed resolution, hoped it would happen, and had been told that Congress would pass it. There was a precedent. Only eight months earlier, official Washing- 252 gerald r. ford ton had approved—­ in fact, welcomed—­ the plea bargain granted Vice President Agnew: he resigned in exchange for the government promise that he would not be prosecuted for accepting bribes in office. That deal had been negotiated by the impeccably upright Elliott Richardson, then Attorney General, to prevent the possibility of a felon succeeding to the Presidency. But this was different. Agnew had taken bribes for his personal use. Nixon, to further his reelection, had corrupted the Constitution. He had obstructed justice, suborned perjury, bribed witnesses. He had lied—­ consciously, deliberately and repeatedly—­ to Congress, to Federal judges, and to the American people. To most Americans, Nixon’s serial crimes warranted punishment. Yet Ford had set him free. To at least one Member of the House of Representatives, the pardon was suspect. She was Bella Abzug of New York, a brilliant lawyer, as widely respected by her peers for her legal ability as she was disliked for her overbearing cantankerousness. Four days after the pardon, Abzug initiated a formal House inquiry to Ford: had he or his representative discussed a pardon with Nixon or his representative before Nixon resigned ? The question was one of twelve she asked in a Privileged Resolution of Inquiry. Since President James Monroe—­ possibly earlier, the records are incomplete—­ the House of Representatives has used this little-­ known legal instrument to “exercise the right to call on the President and heads of departments for information.” Though not mentioned in the Constitution , the precedents of 200 years require a prompt and full response from the President or his Cabinet Members to this polite but imperative inquiry. Abzug’s resolution, cosponsored by ten other House Members, was referred to the Judiciary Committee, then to Chairman William Hungate ’s Subcommittee on Criminal Justice. He considered it a valid inquiry . “I viewed as vital the need to receive answers to the questions” Abzug raised, Hungate said. “The pardon not only clouded the issue of whether the full story of Watergate would ever be known, but it also raised serious doubts as to the sincerity of the new President in declaring that his would be an open Administration.” When Abzug’s privileged inquiry reached the White House, it was routed for action to the new Counsel, Philip Buchen. Unaware of the importance of the House resolution, Buchen drafted a brief letter for the President’s signature. It did not respond to Abzug’s questions at all; he Testifying 253 sent copies of Ford’s proclamation of the pardon and a transcript of the White House press conference that day. To Chairman Hungate and the sponsors of the Resolution, Ford’s letter was an insult. We were being told, Hungate said, to go look for the answers somewhere in the Ford statement and press reports...