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.
-and you responded in less than a minute. I wondered how long before someone said it!
I think Betty Ford would know if this was true.
Wow Ford dies and Woodworth JUST happen to have the dirt on him.....26 years after he left office! What a schumuck!
Was that a test? If so, I passed!!!!
We were reminded all day that a man who could have played professional football slipped once coming down the stairs of Air Force One. . . . I wonder if we will ever be reminded of how BJ Klintoon was drunk off his ass, doing who knows what else, and broke his leg on Greg Norman's front porch.
And it wouldn't surprise me one bit if thinly-veiled insinuations about her alcoholism were floated around if she attempts to set the record straight.
Woodward is still trying to hold onto the fame he got from Nixon's presidency. All those players are dying off; he's gonna lose his notoriety when they're gone.
He still has plenty more lives to destroy with his lies and half-truths.
And .. Ford can no longer refute anything Woodward says.
This is way out of line!
Didn't Woodward say he talked to Bob Casey while Casey was in a coma on his death bed?
Yep.
I don't believe woodward for a minute. This is the guy that interviews dead men. Ford is dead. Now who can challenge anything woodward might write? It will be all his word against another's.
Woodward was on Larry King last night. I caught it flipping through the channels. They were playing tape of Ford saying how he "never believed the Iraq war was about WMD, doesn't believe it and why are we there?". It sounded like Ford. After it was played Woodward said he would only agree to talk if it was released after his death. So Ford leaves that parting shot? I've lost some respect for the man. And then Bob Dole was on and said he isn't surprised Ford would voice an opinion. Yep, this is going to be the news.
This from a slug (Bernstein) whose parents were members of the Communist Party.
They just played the tape of Ford talking about how he "never believed the Iraq war was about WMD, doesn't believe in the war" etc. This is the next media attack. Thanks to Gerald Ford for such a parting shot.
Filthy preying snake if you ask me.
Well, I didn't ask you.....LOL.....but thanks for telling me anyway. I concur!!!!!!
If it isn't taped I don't believe this bastard. I'm sure he wouldn't coax a senile old man.
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