USA: Bush pays tribute to former US President Gerald Ford, who died at age 93.

Former U.S. President Gerald Ford, who took office after the Watergate scandal and later stunned the nation by pardoning a disgraced Richard Nixon, has died at his home in California, aged 93. Vowing that "our long national nightmare is over," Ford took over from Nixon, who on August 9, 1974, became the only U.S. president to resign his office. Nixon had been implicated in a cover-up of a break-in at Democratic National Committee headquarters at the Watergate complex in Washington D.C. Ford defended his highly controversial pardon of Nixon until his death. In a tribute from his ranch in Crawford, Texas, said that Ford had helped heal the nation. "Americans will always admire Gerald Ford's unflinching performance of duty. And the honorable conduct of his administration. And the great rectitude of the man himself. We mourn the loss of such a leader," Bush said. The oldest living U.S. president, Ford served for 2-1/2 years with a style often mocked as bumbling until he lost the 1976 U.S. presidential election to Democrat Jimmy Carter. Ford had been ailing and largely out of the public eye for several years. He died at 6:45 p.m. (0245 GMT) on Tuesday (December 26) at his home in Rancho Mirage, California, his office said. No cause of death was given. Funeral services, expected to take place after his body lies in state, were to held in Washington and Grand Rapids, Michigan, his boyhood home. Plans will be made final on Wednesday, Ford's office said. The public may view the body in Palm Desert, California, Washington and Grand Rapids, it said. "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," Betty Ford said in a statement. "His life was filled with love of God, his family and his country." A one-time Republican congressman, Ford was the only U.S. president who was not elected to either the presidency or vice presidency. He was appointed vice president in 1973 after Nixon's vice president, Spiro Agnew, resigned to avoid prosecution on corruption charges. Ford became president when Nixon resigned to avoid impeachment in the scandal over a politically motivated burglary of Democratic Party offices in the Watergate complex. One month later, on September 8, 1974, Ford stirred enduring controversy by granting Nixon "a full, free and absolute pardon" for any crime he may have committed in office. That set the paradoxical pattern for the fill-in presidency of this rough-hewn politician who had served 26 years as a congressman from Michigan. ends

ITN Source | December 28, 2006

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