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Former President Gerald Ford Passes at 93December 27th, 2006Los Angeles, CA - Former First Lady Betty Ford has said that former US President Gerald Ford has died at age 93. 
Last month Gerald Ford had become the longest-living US president when he passed 93 years and 121 days, the record held by Ronald Reagan. Mr Ford, born in Omaha, Nebraska, was the only unelected US president - taking office after Richard Nixon resigned over Watergate in 1974. Mr Ford lost to Jimmy Carter in the 1976 presidential election. Gerald Ford lived with Betty, 88, at Rancho Mirage, about 130 miles east of Los Angeles in southern California. The former president suffered ill health this year and was taken to hospital four times for tests and angioplasty. He suffered a stroke in 2000. A statement from Betty Ford 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." Gerald Ford had risen from obscurity to become Richard Nixon's vice-president in 1973, when Spiro Agnew resigned amid corruption charges. Mr Ford then succeeded to the top office when Nixon became embroiled in Watergate. Mr Ford declared the "national nightmare" of the Nixon scandal over but soon after he granted his former boss a pardon for any crimes committed as president. Analysts believe in the short term it may have cost him the 1976 election, but in the long term the decision was more praised. Mr Ford was in office as the US accepted its defeat in the Vietnam War, with the fall of Saigon in April 1975. He said it was time to "bind up the nation's wounds". BBC News |
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