Gerald Ford: Off to a Fast, Clean Start

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Journalists, who found themselves suddenly popular at the White House again, rejoiced in the minutiae of the new Administration. Reporters were delighted that the new press secretary, Jerry terHorst, was not afraid to say, as his predecessors had often been, "I don't know, I didn't ask the President," photographers were startled to be allowed to snap the President's morning swim.

Nobody was happier than the Republicans, who found their prospects for the November elections transformed almost overnight. The party was "taking solid food again," observed Washington Post Columnist George Will. "We're in business!" shouted G.O.P. National Chairman George Bush. At Washington's Federal City Club those two chroniclers of reality in American political life, Richard M. Scammon and Ben J. Wattenberg (in This U.S.A. and The Real Majority) eyed each other over lunch and began to rethink their thesis for their next book. "How's this for the introduction?" asked Wattenberg. " 'It has been a tragic time for America. The President resigned under a dark cloud, leaving behind him in disarray one of the world's great political parties—the Democrats.' "

Good sense, perspective and proportion were back in fashion. When, for example, the Fords' eldest son Mike, 24, was quoted as saying that Richard Nixon owed the American people a "total confession" of his role in Watergate, no red balloons went up at the White House. The President accepted the young divinity student's comment with equanimity. "All my children have spoken for themselves since they first learned to speak," he said tolerantly, "and not always with my advance approval. I expect that to continue in the future." And that was that.

The President arrived at the Oval Office most mornings at 7:45 and plunged into the day's work. At first he used his old vice-presidential office in the Executive Office Building, but by early last week he was shuttling between the Oval Office for small meetings and the Cabinet Room for larger ones. The only thing that seemed to intimidate him about the Oval Office the first day was the telephone. "I haven't figured this thing out yet," he acknowledged as he fumbled with the myriad buttons. The desk that had always been meticulously clean during the Nixon years was now cluttered with papers as Ford, wearing steel-rimmed reading glasses, pored over them.

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