14
Tuesday, Januarv 27.1976
University Daily Kansan
Clouds surrounded Ford in 1975
Editor's note: The following story reviews the activities of President Ford last year. It was written by Brad Jones, a writer, editorial and interpretive writing class.
Bv BRAD JONES
The storm clouds of political controversy and public concern hung over the Ford presidency throughout 1978. And rarely did the President make a decision. That is why the staunchest Republican members of Congress. It was a long year for the President.
Last January, Americans were happy with the smiling former U.S. representative as their president. R. Ford had been the first handpicked successor of George W. Bush as his portrait a history. The new President enjoyed a lengthy honeymoon with Congress.
The media were quoting the President as saying, "I am really enjoying this job." He had many Americans spellbound with a feeling of paternity that surrounded him. "This is Gerald Ford," many were saying, "a man we can trust."
In January, however, Ford's honeymoon quickly ended as he began assuming leadership of the country. In the annual address before the joint houses of Congress, Ford declared that the state of the Union wasn't good.
He presented a multifaceted plan for recapturing economic stability. His plan called for "economic stimulation through dollar input," and he proposed an incometax rebate to put more spending money into consumers' pockets.
On Jan. 31, Ford proposed what he called the Energy Independence Act, whereby, through a plan in which the consumer would be expected to assume personal responsibility for the way in which he used energy resources, prices would be raised to force corporations to invest in alternative energy and development of alternative domestic energy sources, such as coal.
"The program," Ford said, "gets America going in making us more competitive."
viewed the plan differently, allowing it to sit
within review for almost four months.
Finally, on May 27, the President took his plan to the public. In a nationally televised talk, Ford reprimanded Congress for its negligence in acting on the energy problem.
He announced that he was vetoing an act that would suspend for 90 days his levying of an additional $1 per barrel tax on imported crude oil. The tax would slow down the trade of foreign oil, Ford thought, and force domestic energy resource development.
Throughout all this intra-governmental fighting, actions in Indochina were helping Communist leaderships come to the force in South Vietnam, Cambodia and Laos. It was a sad time for many Americans. After nearly twenty years of involvement in the war, the country is facing their painful efforts at retaining a democracy in South Vietnam end in failure.
Ford blamed the Congress for not continuing financial support to Vietnam at the level he suggested. But public opinion was divided. Bland squarely on the administration.
On May 15, Ford appeared on television to announce that the Mayaguez, a U.S. merchant ship traveling well outside the United States, had been seized by that country for unknown reasons.
The President acted quickly and decisively, seeing an opportunity to bolster public morale and impress upon the world that the president still had the power to defend its interests.
Ford was not going to allow the Mayaguez, and the country, to be subjected to the same embarrassment that followed in 1960 by the government of North Korea.
Ford used marines to overturn an island where the ship and crew were being held captive. The marines attacked the wrong island, and had it not been for successful aerial bombings of airbases on the Cameroon coast. The naval effort might have been lost in the confusion. Thirty-six marines lost their lives in the battle to free 18 Mayaguze crew members.
During the summer, several actions forced the President to insure his control over the government. Congress passed programs on farm supports, emergency housing provisions and consumer oil price decontrolls in what it considered to be efforts to help the public weather economic troubles.
Ford vetoed all the plans, asserting that the federal government itself could not afford to assume the tremendous costs that would occur from such programs. He later signed a revision of the Emergency Housing Act.
Ford also vetoed a strip mining bill that outlined a program to help recover land restrictions on future strip mining. Ford cited America's need for unabated development of energy resources as the reason for its veto. Environmentalists clamed "rape."
In late July, greater amounts of grain were being shipped to Russia, presumably in the interests of detente. AFL-CIO President George Meany charged that food prices were souring and the grain deals with American farmers were economic burdens. He ordered longhornmen in New Orleans to stop loading grain onto ships bound for Russia.
The longshoremen obleged, and Ford then had to contend with the labor forces, the farmers who wanted their grain sold to increase market prices, and the Russians. The problem was solved, at least temporarily, when the United States would negotiate with Russia to receive something, possibly oil, in return for the grain.
Ford responded to the plight of New York City in a peculiar way.
First, he declared that no federal aid to New York should be forthcoming
After several weeks of surging disgust
from New Yorkers combined with increasing support by economists to aid the city and the announced candidacy of Renald Fond, a former initial nomination. Ferd changed his mind.
In stating that New York City had made headway in insuring its own recovery, he proposed a short-term federal loan program that would cost $2 billion a year in federal loans.
Ford's decision to remove James Schlesinger, the administration's most avid opponent to Soviet detente, from the Secretary of Defense post had many Americans wondering whether Ford was selling America out to the Russians.
The trip to China by Ford and family will stand as one of the most widely reported overseas events. The significance of the trip could be measured more in terms of domestic politics and popularity than as an effort to shore up international relations with the giant Chinese nation.
The results will be a reminder to the American public that Richard Nixon and Ford, two Republican presidents, have both traveled to China.
At the first of this year, Ford assumed a firm stand on the economic and energy issues of the country, an election mandate, energetically calling Congress's bluff on the strip mining bill, the emergency housing bill and others to force the governor or face certain reflection of their plans.
And he had a wide margin of popularity over all but one of the several democrats most often suggested as their party's choice in 1976.
But the slip-ship decisions and blunders he has made in the latter half of the year have eroded the trust that most Americans are familiar with in the early months of his administration.
CIVIL LIBERTIES ISSUES FORUM
Presents Frank Wilkerson, director National Committee against Repressive Legislation
on
S. 1-The Criminal Justice Reform Act (now pending in Congress)
Tuesday, Jan. 27, 8 p.m.
Lawrence Community Building
All are invited to attend.
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