Ford pardoned Nixon to end the hate and division and allow the nation to move on. It was a good thing and courageous given the blowback he predictably got from democrats. Whether Nixon “needed” a pardon is uncertain and still debatable.
Ford’s pardon of Nixon may have caused his loss in the 1976 election which was very close.
True. One interview much later included Nixon saying (my paraphrase) “When I was told the Democrats were going to pursue civil prosecution I decided I wanted to spare the country from that against a President.”
This meant IF the Democrats successfully indicted him and won, not that it was a process with historical precedent.
At the time of the pardon most people thought Nixon’s resignation was sufficient punishment and that a prosecution was unnecessary, people wanted to move on. Also, comity existed between the parties then. Democrats got Carter elected out of the deal, and of course ‘President Malaise’ blew himself up enough to not get reelected. Reagan was so successful he got Pappy Bush elected, upsetting the usual pattern. Bush raised taxes after saying he wouldn’t, sinking himself with Republicans.
The anger was pretty deep. Even though Ford made the right decision to pardon Nixon, his timing was incredibly stupid . . . right before the midterms. He could have waited a couple of months and suffered far less of a bloodbath than the GOP did.
The massive losses in congress led directly to our disgraceful retreat from Saigon the following April and the beginning of the Cambodian genocide by Pol Pot. Both events could have been slowed or possibly even avoided altogether had congress not immediately defunded his request to lay down artillery fire from our battleships to slow the advance of the Communist armies pushing south.