Gerald R. Ford: An Honorable Life

Chapter 23 - Nomination

402 Chapter 23 Nomination The removal of Rockefeller brought Ford no visible campaign benefit and gave conservative Republicans no evident comfort. If anything, the opposition saw it as a clear signal of Ford’s vulnerability. A fortnight later Reagan telephoned Ford. “Hello, Mr. President. I am going to make an announcement, and I want to tell you about it ahead of time. I am going to run for President. I trust we can have a good contest, and I hope that it won’t be divisive.” “Well, Governor, I’m very disappointed,” Ford said. “I’m sorry you’re getting into this. I believe I’ve done a good job and that I can be elected. Regardless of your good intentions, your bid is bound to be divisive . It will take a lot of money, a lot of effort, and it will leave a lot of scars. It won’t be helpful, no matter which of us wins the nomination.” “I don’t think it will be divisive,” Reagan said. “I don’t think it will harm the party.” “Well, I think it will,” Ford said. The conversation ended. Ford put down the phone, thinking: I knew he was wrong. How can you challenge an incumbent President of your own party and not be divisive? Years after, Ford’s resentment was undiminished.“I enjoyed the process of trying to execute the business of government,” he said. “It just burned the hell out of me that I got the diversion from Reagan that caused me to spend an abnormal part of my time trying to round up individual delegates and to raise money.” He had expected to concentrate on governing for the first half of 1976; now he would have to divert time and effort to winning his party’s nomination. Nomination 403 On November 20, 1975, the day after his call to Ford, Reagan announced he would contest Ford for the Republican nomination. Ten months it had taken him to decide. Hannaford said, “He brought us together and told us, ‘I have gradually come to the conclusion that the Ford-­ Kissinger foreign policy must change. We must stand up more firmly to the USSR.’” “I don’t think the Governor had a burning desire to be President,” was the judgment of Edwin Meese, Reagan’s chief of staff in Sacramento and most listened-­ to counselor in Washington.“His main reason for running was that he felt we were losing the Cold War. He felt that détente was being used against us, that the Soviets were cheating on almost everything, being increasingly ambitious around the world while we were in essence abiding by all the agreements. The Governor was somewhat reluctant to run against an incumbent President of his party, but he felt it was necessary because of the situation in the Cold War.” “He also had been concerned, with other conservatives, that neither the Nixon nor the Ford Administration had reversed the Great Society—­ but this was secondary, way behind the first reason.”To Meese and to Hannaford, Reagan’s decision to run against Ford was a decision he alone made, and based on principle: He opposed Ford’s foreign policy. “None of us on his staff were urging him to run,” Meese said. “The fact is that nobody could have talked Ronald Reagan into running for President if he didn’t want to do it.” In essence the foreign policy difference between the two Republican candidates was in approach to the Soviet Union: Ford believed in negotiation; Reagan, in confrontation. Ford placed the highest priority on getting an agreement with the USSR to limit nuclear weapons. This, he said, “would be a crucial step in lifting from mankind the threat of nuclear war.” To Reagan, “Under Messrs. Kissinger and Ford this nation has become Number Two in military power . . . The Soviet Union will not stop taking advantage of détente until it sees that the American people have elected a new President and appointed a new Secretary of State.” To Ford, the best counter to Reagan’s challenge was to show by his actions his qualities as President, to make the right decisions and carry them out. The political corollary, in his opinion was: the better he performed as President, the more he deserved to be nominated and elected, 404 gerald r. ford and the more likely he would be nominated and elected. So Ford buckled...