• April 01, 1974
• Vol. 1
• No. 5

The Front-Runner

By Clare Crawford

With Richard Nixon's Impeachment Looming, Can Gerald Ford Keep a Family Promise Not to Run Again?

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From PEOPLE Magazine

It was only a weekend junket to South Carolina—a quick down-and-back that began with a speech at the Republican state convention in Columbia and ended at the Hibernian Society's St. Patrick's Day dinner in Charleston. Anyone else might have called it campaigning—anyone, that is, except Vice-President Gerald Ford, the front-runner among Republican presidential prospects who vows nevertheless he is not running for anything. Lately, though, he has been haunted by a troubling thought: he might wake up some day and be President. "It's the last thing I want to happen, because I think the President is a great guy," he insists, referring to Richard Nixon. "I don't want to be President because I want him to be President."

Coming from any other politician, such protestations might seem coyly self-serving. From Ford they have the ring of sincerity. Chosen as Vice-President for his loyalty, reliability and length of service unblemished by scandal, Ford is steadfast in his support of the President. Yet he is responsible to himself as well, and events have been thrusting him forward. He says he is embarrassed by introductions like Senator Strom Thurmond's in Columbia, hailing him as "a future President of the United States." But he also allows he has put a certain discreet distance between the incumbent and himself—just enough, he says, "so I can say I'm my own man." Always a tireless barnstormer in the service of his party, the Vice-President has lately enjoyed a savior's reception. "Ford is a tremendous asset," declares GOP national chairman George Bush. "He gives the party a mammoth morale lift wherever he goes. Clearly, if he decided to be a candidate he'd be a tremendous force to be reckoned with."

Ford takes unconcealed joy in campaigning, whatever he chooses to call it—the speechmaking, the politicking, the laying on of hands. "The truth is, I love what I'm doing," he says, "and I have no ulterior motives in doing it. I have no plans, no expectations."

The press of course recognizes that with the possibility of President Nixon's impeachment or resignation, Ford could become President long before 1976, and his travels are covered accordingly. After years of recrimination between the media and a hostile executive branch, relations with Ford are exemplary. "I enjoy the press corps," says the Vice-President. "I really do. We have a lot of fun." On a recent swing into Florida, Ford playfully donned a T-shirt emblazoned with the motto "Keep on Streaking," and raced the length of the vice-presidential jet. Ford kept his trousers on, of course, but the incident typified the more lighthearted atmosphere that has prevailed on the plane since Ford was sworn in.

But in calculating Ford's political future, the influence of his wife Betty and their four children, ages 16 to 24, cannot be ignored. Leaning back in his seat during the recent flight to South Carolina the Vice-President described with remarkable candor their misgivings about his life in politics. "Back in '64, Betty developed a bad neck nerve problem," he explained. "It got serious. There was a numbness of her arm. Then she went to the hospital and had all kinds of treatment—from internists, neurosurgeons, orthopedic people. It was tension created by problems of me being away so much and her having to run the family."

Both Fords consulted a psychiatrist, but the condition could not be relieved. Finally, in 1973, they reached a decision. Ford realized he would probably never attain his ambition to be Speaker of the House of Representatives, but he did want to run for Congress once more and serve a full 28 years. Then, in January 1977, he would retire. "She said okay, and the kids said okay. If I had been there 28 years, I'd have been 63—which I thought would be young enough so she and I could just go off and really enjoy ourselves for 10 years or more. She wouldn't have any more neck pains and arm pains. I made a real firm commitment not only to her but to the children."

Now that he is Vice-President, it would seem almost ingenuous to believe such a bargain could still be in force, but Ford says he believes that it is. "I think they think it holds," he says. "I think it does as long as they do. I suppose if they came to me and Betty said, 'Gerry, whatever the circumstances are, we aren't going to hold you to it,' why that would be different. But," he adds earnestly, "I'm not going to ask them...and I don't see any situation where they would do it."

Well, maybe he does see one situation. "If you were writing the worst scenario," he says, his guileless blue eyes narrowing, "which I don't think is ever going to happen, for me it would be a Republican convention deadlocked. Reagan, Rockefeller, Connally—anybody else you want—completely deadlocked after a series of votes. Nobody concedes," he continues, a note of drama creeping into his voice. "What happens then if they and the others come to me? That's the tough question."