#38 Gerald Ford Pardon of Nixon Mayaguez Incident WIN Government in the Sunshine Act

Pardon of Nixon One of Ford's early acts as president was the announcement of a conditional amnesty program for those who had evaded the draft or deserted during the Vietnam War. The most attention-getting act of his years in office, and the move that for many destroyed his credibility, followed in the next month.

On Sept. 8, 1974, declaring that in the end “it is not the ultimate fate of Richard Nixon that most concerns me” but rather “the immediate future of this great country,” Ford pardoned Nixon “for all offenses against the United States” that he had committed “or may have committed” while in office.

The pardon, later alleged to have been the result of blackmail (that if Ford did not pardon him, Nixon would blacken the new president's reputation by publicly claiming that Ford had promised a pardon in exchange for the presidency), effectively squelched any criminal prosecutions to which Nixon might have been liable.

Afterward Ford voluntarily appeared before a subcommittee of the House of Representatives on October 17 to explain his reasoning—the first time a standing president had formally testified before a committee of Congress.

Mayaguez Incident During the final days of the Vietnam War, in March 1975, Ford ordered an airlift of some 237,000 anticommunist Vietnamese refugees from Da Nang, most of whom were taken to the United States. Two months later, after the seizure by Cambodia of the American cargo ship Mayaguez, Ford declared the event an “act of piracy” and sent the Marines to seize the ship.

They succeeded, but the rescue operation to save the 39-member crew resulted in the loss of 41 American lives and the wounding of 50 others.

WIN Ford's administration attempted to cope with the high rate of inflation, which he inherited from the Nixon administration, by slowing down the economy. The result was a very severe recession in 1974–75, which succeeded in lowering inflation but at the cost of an unemployment rate that rose to nearly 9 percent.

Despite his WIN (Whip Inflation Now) program, he could do little to stop the country's economic problems.

Government in the Sunshine Act To ensure that such meetings and decisions do not take place in secret, Congress passed the Government in the Sunshine Act in 1976 (5 USC 552b). About 50 federal agencies are subject to the law. Agencies are allowed to close meetings to protect national security or other information that could frustrate proposed agency action.

Agencies can also close meetings that involve discussion of pending or anticipated litigation in which the agency is involved. Some agencies have been accused of changing the names of meetings — that is to say, calling them something else (such as staff discussions) — or of using telephone conference calls to avoid the intent of this Act.

Interesting Twice in September 1975, Ford was the target of assassination attempts. In the first instance, Secret Service agents intervened before shots were fired; in the second, the would-be assassin fired one shot at Ford but missed by several feet.