Robert Parry: Where Gerald Ford Went Wrong

[seafan]

Where Gerald Ford Went Wrong

By Robert Parry
January 1, 2007

After replacing Richard Nixon in 1974, Gerald Ford turned his back on the imperial presidency that had reached new heights under Nixon. But facing political pressure from the Republican Right, Ford gradually reversed course putting the nation on track for even worse excesses under George W. Bush.
This mixed legacy has been missed amid the effusive eulogies that have followed Ford’s death on Dec. 26 at the age of 93. Ford has been showered with near universal praise for helping to bring the nation together in the wake of Nixon’s Watergate scandal and the U.S. military defeat in Vietnam.
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But this praise focuses on the first months of his 2 ½-year presidency. By late 1975 and early 1976, Ford began shifting direction when he found himself threatened by Ronald Reagan’s insurgent campaign for the Republican nomination.

To stave off Reagan’s challenge from the Right, Ford made a series of critical concessions, such as backpedaling on CIA reforms, forsaking détente, and compromising the integrity of the CIA’s analytical division to pacify hard-line Cold Warriors.
With George H.W. Bush as the new CIA director in 1976, Ford joined in blocking the release of a congressional report on past CIA abuses and went along with Bush’s cover-up of new CIA scandals, including a Chilean-sponsored terrorist attack in Washington, D.C., that killed a Chilean dissident (Chile’s former Foreign Minister Orlando Letelier) and an American woman (Ronni Moffitt).
Ford gave another boost to the revival of the imperial presidency by credentialing Donald Rumsfeld and Dick Cheney, who served as White House chiefs of staff. A quarter century later, Rumsfeld and Cheney would provide the intellectual framework for George W. Bush’s assertion of “plenary” – or unlimited – presidential powers.

In many ways, the long march back for the imperial presidency can be traced to the latter half of 1975 and the start of 1976, roughly matching the time when Ford summoned George H.W. Bush back from China to become CIA director.
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Though Bush managed to stonewall the Letelier investigation until after the Nov. 2 election, containment of the scandal was not enough to put Ford over the top.
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Yet, despite Ford’s narrow defeat, the seeds for a Republican resurgence – and a revival of the imperial presidency – had been planted.
By late 1976, it was clear that the GOP would not be the party favoring a constrained executive and government openness; it would resist congressional oversight of the CIA and other intelligence agencies; it would push a hard-line against the Soviet menace even if the threat was really in steep decline.
CIA Director Bush further advanced that cause when he embraced the alarmist “Team B” analysis of Soviet power. In November 1976, Bush approved a new National Intelligence Estimate, entitled “Soviet Forces for Intercontinental Conflict Through the Mid-1980s.”

In many ways, the course of the next three decades had been set. The imperial presidency was on the road back.
Four years later, Ronald Reagan would wrest the White House from Jimmy Carter. With George H.W. Bush as his Vice President, Reagan would challenge the post-Watergate constraints on executive powers.
When Congress sought to impose legal restrictions on waging war in Nicaragua or requiring notification about weapons shipments to foreign countries like Iran, Reagan simply went outside the law, hid the operations and misled Congress about the facts.
Reagan’s extralegal activities eventually were exposed in the Iran-Contra scandal, but key Republicans, including then-Rep. Dick Cheney, fought back and achieved a strategic victory for the imperial presidency when congressional Democrats shied away from a constitutional confrontation with the White House.

The imperial presidency was fully restored in 2001 when George W. Bush, with Cheney as his Vice President, took office, broadening the notion of executive secrecy and – after the 9/11 attacks – asserting Bush’s “plenary” powers as Commander in Chief for the duration of the interminable “war on terror.”
Cheney, who staffed his vice presidential office with neoconservatives and advocates of unrestrained executive authority, seemed to take particular delight in brushing aside the remnants of the post-Watergate reforms, which he had disdained from his days as Gerald Ford’s chief of staff.
Rumsfeld was back, too, in his Ford-era job as Defense Secretary, along with other neoconservative ideologues, such as his deputy Paul Wolfowitz.

Befitting the mixed legacy of his presidency, Ford held personal doubts about the direction that the Republican Party had followed and particularly George W. Bush’s decision to invade Iraq in 2003.
But Ford kept his criticisms secret, even embargoing a 2004 interview about the Iraq War until after his death. In other words, Ford stayed silent during the run-up to the invasion in 2003 and then withheld his critical judgments for another three years, while 3,000 American soldiers and possibly a half million or more Iraqis died.
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In his death as in his life, Ford exercised the caution, even timidity, that marked a man of decent instincts who shied from battles needed to restore the principles of the American Republic. His ambiguity of purpose may be Ford’s true legacy as the 38th U.S. President.

Another related piece by Parry:

Gerald Ford's Mixed Legacy

[seafan]

1. A kick for an important synopsis tying all of this elusive history together

Robert Parry should be required study for everyone interested in reclaiming the power of America as a force for good.

[Tellurian]

2. I find Parry's writings stunted and a total disconnect

of convoluted thought lumped into confusing articles pumped up as historical fact.

Not someone I would recommend for study.

[seafan]

3. Respectfully disagree.

You might find this piece from BuzzFlash of interest:


http://www.buzzflash.com/interviews/04/10/int04054.html">Investigative Reporter and Author Robert Parry Plumbs History, Unearths the Roots of the Bush Dynasty

From a BuzzFlash interview, October 26, 2004

America lives in a historical vacuum, empty of context and devoid of truthful reporting, especially when it comes to contemporary events. The corporate media cares little about actions or words from the past. As a result, Americans are left with a disjointed view of reality -- with no context.

But a new book by veteran journalist Robert Parry, Secrecy & Privilege: The Rise of the Bush Dynasty from Watergate to Iraq, gathers the fragmented pieces of the past into a disturbing picture of how the Bush family figures in the major scandals of the past 30 years. Robert Parry, an award-winning Washington journalist for 27 years, broke many of the stories now known as the Iran-Contra Affair while reporting for the Associated Press and Newsweek in the 1980s. His well-researched and "just the facts ma'am" style prose connects the dots on the Bushes -- many of which will surprise you.

If you ever ask yourself, "How did America get here?" then you simply must read this book. It gives the clearest, most concise history of contemporary politics -- including Watergate, the October Surprise, the Iran-Contra Affair, the arming of Saddam Hussein, U.S. support of death squads in Latin and South America, the birth of the right-wing media, the witch hunt of Bill Clinton, Al Gore’s unfair shake from the press, Bush’s failure on September 11th and Bush's lies to invade Iraq.

In 1995, Robert Parry started Consortium for Independent Journalism, Inc., and consortiumnews.com, the Internet’s first investigative magazine where he continues to research and write in-depth articles as editor. Parry also maintains an astonishing archive and clearinghouse for information on the Bush Family and a running list of scandals and corruption long forgotten by most of the media.

Robert Parry epitomizes the eloquent quote from Czech writer Milan Kundera: "The struggle of man against power is the struggle of memory against forgetting."

Interview, http://www.buzzflash.com/interviews/04/10/int04054.html">Part 1

Interview, http://www.buzzflash.com/interviews/04/10/int04055.html">Part 2



Parry's work is a treasure trove of information and illumination of 40+ years of the handiwork of dark actors hell bent on transforming America into an imperialist regime.