Posted on 12/27/2006 3:01:51 PM PST by wagglebee
WASHINGTON -- Over the past several years, Bob Woodward has been secretly interviewing Gerald R. Ford for a book to be published after the former president's death.
Woodward confirmed to NewsMax that he spent "many hours" interviewing Ford on condition that his comments appear after his death. In some cases, when Woodward interviewed key government figures for his latest book, "State of Denial," he asked about Ford as well.
Ford died Tuesday at his home in Rancho Mirage, Calif., where Woodward conducted most of the interviews.
Woodward said today that excerpts from his interviews with Ford will begin running in The Washington Post tomorrow. He said he is "not sure" whether the material will be his next book. However, Woodward has been telling Bush administration insiders the interviews with Ford and key government figures were for his next book.
In the forthcoming account, Woodward will address whether Ford made a deal with Richard Nixon to resign as president in return for the pardon Ford granted him on Sept. 8, 1974 for all federal crimes he had "committed or may have committed" when he was in the White House.
Woodward told me he covered that question in his book "Shadow: Five Presidents and the Legacy of Watergate." That book revealed that Nixon's chief of staff, Alexander Haig, entered Ford's office on Aug. 1, 1974 while Ford was still vice president and Nixon had yet to resign.
Haig listed pardon options, including leaving office in return for an agreement that the new president would pardon him. Ford never accepted the offer from Haig and later decided to pardon Nixon on his own terms, Woodward said in the book, which came out in June 1999.
Last April, Woodward gave a talk at the Gerald R. Ford Presidential Library in Ann Arbor, Mich., commemorating the 25th anniversary of the library. The library is located on the north campus of the University of Michigan, Ford's alma mater.
Woodward told the audience the pardon came as a surprise. The Washington Post reporter, then 31, was in a New York City hotel room when his Watergate colleague Carl Bernstein called him.
"The son of a bitch pardoned the son of a bitch," Bernstein told him.
Immediately, Woodward imagined Nixon and Ford had struck a backroom deal in which the disgraced president would resign and the vice president would take his place in exchange for a full pardon.
"It looked like the continuation of Watergate rather than the end of Watergate," Woodward said in the talk.
Woodward said he grew to admire Ford for his openness — a trait he sees as lacking in the Bush administration. As evidence, he cited Ford's first State of the Union address in 1975. In the speech, Ford spoke bluntly about the economic troubles of the nation, saying "the state of the union is not good."
Woodward said Ford once allowed a reporter from The New York Times to shadow him for a week, day and night.
"Can you imagine Bill Clinton doing that?" Woodward asked. But Woodward said Ford still has an incorrect view of Watergate, believing Nixon's top deputies were more to blame for the misuse of presidential power.
"He did not understand Watergate or Nixon, in my view," Woodward said.
Woodward said that 20 years after leaving office, Ford told him that spin doctors from both parties should be banished from the White House.
"Suppose they did that in the White House today," Woodward said in the talk. "What would they do with all the vacant office space?"
Woodward won the Gerald R. Ford Prize for Distinguished Reporting on the Presidency in 2003.
Has there ever been a list of these supposed federal crimes Nixon is supposed to have committed?.. I am tired of hearing this claim when I have NEVER seen such crimes ever listed.
Bob Woodward is becoming the Cindy Sheehan of Watergate. Everything that comes out of his mouth is a true representation of the movies playing in his head.
How can we be assured that he not just making this crap up? Who among us believe that Woodward is an honest man?
Woodward is a morbid bastard.
The articles of impeachment voted by the House Judiciary Committee included several, ranging from obstruction of justice to tax evasion.
What a whore this guy is!
Why would anyone believe a single word from either of these opportunists.
Particularly since Woodward has a history of communing with the dead.
Yes I am aware of that list of charges, but IIRC, there was not substantial evidence for those charges to have standing in a 'real' court of law. A liberal Congress maybe but not an actual trial. Also IIRC Hillry cut her political teeth helping to compose those articles, and even with the suggestion that Nixon should not have legal counsel.
It has been a while since I read anything Watergate so my memory may well be way off.
Bob Woodward
Misleading Us Again?
Right. I would think the VP who was in the Cabinet meetings etc would know a tad more about what went on than a leftist reporter.
As luck would have it, President Ford dies JUST AS Woodward's lies, er, rather, important historical work is ready for publication!
Mirabile dictu! Deus ex machina! And all that jazz....
Woodward had better have it on tape or it's a made up story.
Exactly so --- and the tape had best not be altered or missing 13 minutes. :)
Yes. That IS the million dollar question: Why WOULD any conservative even agree to meet with him? He must be one hell of a salesman in person or something.
You know what really irritates me? Is to hear the newscasters talk about President Ford and how he was sometimes ridiculed for his stumbles.
They ALL talk about it as if it were someone ELSE who had done the ridiculing, not THEM...boy that sure does irritate me.
YUP, no missing 13 minutes.
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