The Presidency: A Time Exclusive: The Other Born-Again President

(2 of 3)

One of Ford's first acts as President was some spiritual housecleaning. Among the more ingeniously cynical inventions of the Nixon Administration was the much publicized White House church service, which in addition to providing genuine fellowship for those so inclined was a prime tool for image building, fund raising, arm twisting and dealmaking for the President's men. Two days after Ford was sworn in, his wife Betty Ford wrote in her diary, a little pointedly, "There aren't going to be any more private services in the East Room for a select few." During his first Sunday as President, Ford and his wife went to the same church they had attended for more than 20 years: Immanuel-on-the-Hill in Alexandria, Va.

Ford did have a private source of spiritual sustenance, which was in every way different from Nixon's public displays of piety. For years Ford faithfully attended a weekly late-morning prayer session with several friends in the House: John Rhodes of Arizona, Mel Laird of Wisconsin and Al Quie of Minnesota. The sessions, which began in 1967 and continued off and on through 1975, were "very quiet," totally off the record, Ford said. Talk about going to Bible study, he worried, and people might get the idea that you think you're somehow better than they are.

It's easier to understand the pardon when you reckon with the prayers. The question of what to do about Nixon landed hard on Ford from the moment he was sworn in. Apart from everything else, Nixon was a longtime friend. Ford worried about what putting the disgraced President in prison would do to him, as well as to a country so shaken by the betrayals of those years. Mercy and healing were very much on Ford's mind on Saturday, Aug. 31, when he spent the morning discussing an amnesty plan for Vietnam draft evaders. When the meeting was over, Ford went back to the Oval Office and called evangelist Billy Graham to talk about their mutual friend. "There are many angles to it," Ford said of Nixon's fate. "I'm certainly giving it a lot of thought and prayer." Graham, who was arguing for a pardon, told Ford he was praying for him, and before the two men finished their conversation, Graham recalled, "we had a prayer over the telephone."

A week later, on Sunday, Sept. 8, Ford went to St. John's Episcopal Church, directly across Lafayette Square from the White House. He took Communion with some of the 50 other worshippers and knelt in prayer. There was no sermon that morning--at least until Ford delivered one of his own. He went back to the Oval Office, practiced his speech aloud twice, moved to a smaller adjoining office and alerted congressional leaders of his plans. At 11:05, in a statement that invoked God's name six times, Ford told the nation he was pardoning Nixon. "The Constitution is the supreme law of our land, and it governs our actions as citizens," he said. "Only the laws of God, who governs our consciences, are superior to it ... I do believe, with all my heart and mind and spirit, that I, not as President but as a humble servant of God, will receive justice without mercy if I fail to show mercy."