Video: 'Swearing in Ceremony of Gerald R. Ford as 38th President of the United States, August 9. 1974'
(Friday, August 9, 1974, 12:03 a.m. EDT; during the Watergate scandal) — Gerald Rudolph Ford became the 38th president of the United States today, promising that “our long national nightmare is over.”
Calling upon the nation to “bind up the wounds of Watergate,” the new President declared: “Our Constitution works. Our great republic is a government of laws and not of men. Here, the people rule.”
His voice choked with emotion, he urged the nation’s prayers for his predecessor and friend of a quarter-century, Richard Milhous Nixon. “May our former president, who brought peace to millions, find it for himself,” he said.
Ford assumed the powers of the presidency at 11:35 a.m. EDT, the moment Nixon’s letter of resignation was handed to Secretary of State Henry A. Kissinger.
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Then, at 12:03 p.m. EDT, the new President took the oath of office in the East Room of the White House, administered by Chief Justice Warren E. Burger before an overflow crowd of friends, the Cabinet, and current and former congressional colleagues of Ford.
In that same room, scarcely two hours earlier, Nixon had bid an emotional farewell to his Cabinet and top aides.
Raising his right hand, Ford rested his left hand on a Bible held by his wife, opened to one of his favorite passages, the fifth and sixth verses of the third chapter of Proverbs: “Trust in the Lord with all thine heart; and lean not unto thine own understanding. In all thy ways acknowledge Him, and He shall direct thy paths.” Then, in a firm voice, he took the oath of office.
As the thunderous applause ended, the 61-year-old President began perhaps the most moving speech of his career. Speaking with what appeared to be a new sense of self-assurance, he noted that he was assuming the presidency under circumstances never before experienced by Americans.
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“This is an hour of history that troubles our minds and hurts our hearts,” he said. “Therefore,” he continued, “I feel it is my first duty to make an unprecedented compact with my countrymen. Not an inaugural address, not a fireside chat, not a campaign speech. Just a little straight talk among friends. I intend it to be the first of many.”
As the first American to assume the office after the resignation of a president, Ford said he was “acutely aware that you have not elected me as your president by your ballots. So I ask you to confirm me as your president with your prayers.”
He declared that he had not gained office by secret promises, nor had he campaigned either for the presidency or the vice presidency. “I have not subscribed to any partisan platform,” he said. “I am indebted to no man and only to one woman — my dear wife Betty — as I begin the most difficult job in the world.”
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This was reminiscent of his earlier declaration, “I am my own man,” which he had frequently sounded during recent months of personal soul-searching as he sought to remain loyal to Nixon while simultaneously holding himself above the spreading taint of the Watergate affair.
Declaring that while he had not sought the responsibility, he would not shirk it, he said that those who had nominated and confirmed him just eight months ago as vice president were his friends of both parties.
“It is only fitting then that I should pledge to them and to you that I will be the president of all the people,” he said.
