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

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Even as his faith inspired him to save Nixon, he refused to use it to save himself. Ford's discretion would be tested as the 1976 campaign took shape. Former Georgia Governor Jimmy Carter was a Southern Baptist who taught Sunday school, did mission work, filled in for preachers when they were on vacation and told the crowd at a backyard reception in 1976 that he had been born again. His sister Ruth Carter Stapleton was herself an evangelist who used to minister to reporters in the back of Carter's campaign plane and wrote letters to the faithful enlisting them in her brother's cause. Carter's campaign autobiography, Why Not the Best, talked about his midlife conversion and was a surprise best seller. Asked once to distill his campaign message into one word, Carter said, "Faith."

Carter's religious appeal inspired Zeoli to propose a counterattack. "I said, 'Jerry, look, Carter's a fine guy, a fine Christian. But nobody knows you're a Christian. Let's put a book together about your faith, and about how God has used you.'"

But Ford flatly refused. "You told me a long time ago we're not going to take advantage of our faith to get elected," he reminded Zeoli. Ford declined to allow Zeoli to lend his name to preachers' committees for Ford. "He thought he'd be using his chaplain to get votes," Zeoli recalled. Ford later revealed that he found Carter's discussion of his faith unsettling. "I have always felt a closeness to God and have looked to a higher being for guidance and support," Ford explained, "but I didn't think it was appropriate to advertise my religious beliefs."

Carter won by fewer than 2 million votes out of 81.6 million cast. But Ford never had any regrets about the pardon or his refusal to name Jesus as his running mate. His oldest son Jack told him, "You know, when you come so close, it's really hard to lose. But at the same time, if you can't lose as graciously as you plan to win, then you shouldn't have been in the thing in the first place."

To which Ford noted, "I couldn't have said it better myself." •

Gibbs and Duffy's book, The Preacher and the Presidents: Billy Graham's White House Crusade, will be published in August by Center Street