Speaker 1: Rip Current is a production of iHeart Podcasts. The views
Speaker 1: and opinions expressed do not necessarily reflect those of the host,
Speaker 1: producers or parent company. Listener discretion is it five.
Speaker 2: At twelve twenty five pm on September twelfth, one week
Speaker 2: after Lynette From's assassination attempt, President Gerald Ford arrived at
Speaker 2: Lambert Field in Saint Louis. He was scheduled to spend
Speaker 2: five hours on the ground, during which time he would
Speaker 2: do a television interview, make an appearance at a thousand
Speaker 2: dollars a couple Republican fundraiser, and give a speech to
Speaker 2: a regional White House conference on domestic and economic affairs.
Speaker 2: The main event, though, was a speech to the National
Speaker 2: Baptist Convention USA, the nation's largest black religious organization. Ford
Speaker 2: was concerned about his lack of popularity among black citizens.
Speaker 2: In the speech, he said, among other things, that black
Speaker 2: Americans were quote competing in our society more than ever
Speaker 2: before and quote America is better for it. He also
Speaker 2: observed that quote equality in the true spirit of our
Speaker 2: founding fathers is not yet a full reality for every American.
Speaker 2: I am sorry to say. The speech was scheduled for
Speaker 2: two pm at Keel Auditorium. At twelve fifty a three
Speaker 2: year police veteran named Thomas kal Katera was on a
Speaker 2: catwalk above the auditorium floor when he saw about thirty
Speaker 2: feet away a man standing on a stairway leading down
Speaker 2: from the third floor, about one hundred and fifty feet
Speaker 2: from where Ford would be speaking in just over an hour.
Speaker 2: He was holding something in his hand. Kl Katara thought
Speaker 2: he might be a maintenance worker and called out to him.
Speaker 2: The man looked at cal Kata. Cal Kata took in
Speaker 2: the guy's appearance, white, thirty to thirty five years old,
Speaker 2: six feet maybe one hundred and seventy five pounds. He
Speaker 2: wore a medium length black wig, a white short sleeved shirt,
Speaker 2: and dark trousers. Kaw Katara could now see that in
Speaker 2: his left hand he held a forty five caliber automatic pistol.
Speaker 2: Kl Katara started after him. The man ran, kal Katara
Speaker 2: chased him across the crowded convention floor until the man
Speaker 2: ducked into a room. Kaw Kata, close on his heels,
Speaker 2: burst through the door to find the room empty. There
Speaker 2: were several exit doors. The man could have taken any
Speaker 2: of them. He had escaped. Two sixteen man mobile reserve
Speaker 2: units were brought in to join the search of the
Speaker 2: maze like auditorium. They performed a methodical search but failed
Speaker 2: to find the man cal Katara had seen. Daniel P.
Speaker 2: Horgan Keel, auditorium's assistant manager, was not surprised, quote, if
Speaker 2: I wanted to hide, there's no way you could find me.
Speaker 2: A few minutes later, there were reports of a man
Speaker 2: on the roof of a parking lot just south of
Speaker 2: the auditorium, but police found no one there other than
Speaker 2: an elderly parking attendant. Also that day, six anonymous bomb
Speaker 2: threats were phoned in, including four claiming to have put
Speaker 2: explosives and kill auditorium. The police had already swept the building,
Speaker 2: so this did not prove to be a big concern.
Speaker 2: At five point thirty two, Air Force one departed Lambert
Speaker 2: Field with Gerald Ford on board. Upon hearing the plane
Speaker 2: had lifted off a plane closed, officer slumped in a
Speaker 2: chair at the command post in police headquarters. Don't you
Speaker 2: feel fifty pounds? Later, he said to no one in particular,
Speaker 2: I'm Toby.
Speaker 3: Ball, and I'm Mary Catherine Garrison, and this is rip current.
Speaker 4: My follow Americans, Our long national nightmare.
Speaker 3: Is over, Episode five thirty eight. The incident at Keyl
Speaker 3: Auditorium did not cause a stir in nationally. The New
Speaker 3: York Times referred to it in passing as Saint Louis
Speaker 3: police report of a man allegedly carrying a handgun in
Speaker 3: a larger article about Ford's commitment to continue engaging with
Speaker 3: crowds despite Lynette's atempt in Sacramento. In a prepared statement,
Speaker 3: Ford said.
Speaker 2: Only by going around the country to meetings like this,
Speaker 2: by meeting people face to face and listening to what
Speaker 2: they have to say, can you really learn how people
Speaker 2: feel and what they think. Doing this is an important
Speaker 2: part of my job. I have no intention of abdicating
Speaker 2: that responsibility. I have no intention of allowing the government
Speaker 2: of the people to be held hostage at the point.
Speaker 5: Of a gun.
Speaker 3: On the same day, The Times ran an article titled
Speaker 3: Felon admits guilt in threat on Ford. The four paragraph
Speaker 3: article actually touched on two stories. The first was about
Speaker 3: the guilty plea entered by thirty five year old Thomas d.
Speaker 3: Elbert for leaving a phone message in mid August for
Speaker 3: the Secret Service threatening the President's life. The last paragraph
Speaker 3: related that the Sacramento County District Attorney had determined that
Speaker 3: Sandra Good hadn't broken any laws by compiling a list
Speaker 3: of people who had been supposedly sentenced to death by
Speaker 3: the International People's Court of Retribution. This assessment that Sandra
Speaker 3: did not pose a real threat echoes a question that
Speaker 3: still remains about Lynette's attempt on Ford. How serious were
Speaker 3: Lynette's intentions. The gun had not fired, was the bullet
Speaker 3: unchambered by accident? Was she merely trying to get attention
Speaker 3: without actually harming the president? Or was she really trying
Speaker 3: to kill Ford and didn't pull it off. In the
Speaker 3: following clip, television reporter Steve Swatt, sitting on a desk,
Speaker 3: holds a black pistol in his hand and describes to
Speaker 3: the camera how Lynnette's gun worked.
Speaker 6: This is the type of gun that was pointed at
Speaker 6: the president, a forty five caliber automatic. The pistols magazine
Speaker 6: or clip contained four cartridges, but merely loading the clip
Speaker 6: into the gun is not enough to fire it. Ms
Speaker 6: From allegedly tried to fire the gun without pulling back
Speaker 6: a mechanism which forces a cartridge into the chamber. Had
Speaker 6: this been done, would have fired.
Speaker 3: As a member of the Manson family, Lynette had become
Speaker 3: familiar with guns. The following clip is from the film
Speaker 3: Manson nineteen seventy three. The scene, shot after Manson's imprisonment
Speaker 3: shows Lynette holding a rifle and talking to the camera.
Speaker 7: You have to make love with it.
Speaker 8: You have to know it.
Speaker 3: You have to know every part of it. And to
Speaker 3: know you know it is to know it so that
Speaker 3: you could pick it up any second and shoot. Later.
Speaker 3: Ask whether they feared a police raid to confiscate their guns, Lynette,
Speaker 3: along with Sandra Good and a third Manson girl, had
Speaker 3: this response, if you want.
Speaker 4: It here it is, come and get it.
Speaker 9: That's very hurried because it won't be here.
Speaker 8: Wrong, your motherfuckers.
Speaker 3: Her intention that morning is still an open question. From
Speaker 3: biographer Jess braven.
Speaker 10: One, She's been kind of ambiguous about whether she wanted
Speaker 10: to kill him or not. What seems the most plausible
Speaker 10: explanation is that she wasn't sure. I mean, she hadn't
Speaker 10: ruled it out, but hadn't decided that she was going
Speaker 10: to do it for sure.
Speaker 3: From herself hasn't been consistent in her statements in many ways, though,
Speaker 3: it seems as though her intent is not as important
Speaker 3: as this question, regardless of outcome. Why had Lynette chosen
Speaker 3: to point a gun at the president?
Speaker 8: Why?
Speaker 3: Gerald Ford? Again, the answer isn't completely clear and probably
Speaker 3: includes several factors. One is her continued allegiance to Manson.
Speaker 3: Manson hated Nixon for some reason. When Manson wrote Nixon's name,
Speaker 3: he spelled it with two x's.
Speaker 10: From her point of view, he's the heir of Richard Nixon.
Speaker 10: She hates Nixon wasn't the only one to really hate Nixon,
Speaker 10: but she had a particular reason too, because Nixon had
Speaker 10: said negative things about Manson. During Manson's criminal trial in
Speaker 10: Los Angeles.
Speaker 3: Nixon had mentioned Manson while talking about how the media had, however,
Speaker 3: unintentionally made heroes out of criminals. A second reason could
Speaker 3: be that Lynette was trying to bring Manson more attention.
Speaker 3: She and Sandra Good had spent considerable time and effort
Speaker 3: trying to persuade any official they could to allow them
Speaker 3: to visit Manson while he was at the Fulsome State prison.
Speaker 3: These attempts were unsuccessful. In nineteen seventy four, Manson was
Speaker 3: transferred for seven months to the Vacaville Medical Unit, of
Speaker 3: the California Penal System for mental health treatment. He returned
Speaker 3: to FULSOM in November of seventy four, but was assaulted
Speaker 3: by two other inmates in May of seventy five. In June,
Speaker 3: he was transferred to San Quentin for his own protection.
Speaker 3: It may have seemed to Lynette that Manson was fading
Speaker 3: from public consciousness. With this attempt, she could and did
Speaker 3: bring Manson's name back into the news with another shocking
Speaker 3: act of potential violence. Finally, as we saw last episode,
Speaker 3: Lynette and Sandra had become fixated on environmental degradation. In fact,
Speaker 3: this was the reason Lynette gave specifically that the redwoods
Speaker 3: were endangered. Lynette initially claimed that environmentalism was behind her attempt,
Speaker 3: but later she would say that she was trying to
Speaker 3: draw more attention to Manson. But maybe the best way
Speaker 3: to understand Lynette's targeting Afford is that he was a
Speaker 3: symbol of the establishment that she and Manson both rejected.
Speaker 10: She didn't really have a much of an impression about
Speaker 10: Ford as a person. I mean, at one point she
Speaker 10: sort of just referred to me, he's just sort of
Speaker 10: a robot. I mean, she just sort of sees him
Speaker 10: as a symbolic representation of the establishment in the country
Speaker 10: and industry and all the bad things going on in
Speaker 10: her view in the country.
Speaker 2: Looking back fifty years after the fact, it's hard to
Speaker 2: imagine anyone trying to kill Gerald Ford. Of all the presidents,
Speaker 2: he seems to have gone down in popular perception as
Speaker 2: an honorable but forgettable president whose main achievement was soothing
Speaker 2: the country after the trauma of Watergate. A second impression
Speaker 2: might be chevy Chase's depiction of Ford as a hapless
Speaker 2: klutz on Saturday Night Live.
Speaker 11: Let's take a look at the recent popularity pauls.
Speaker 7: Shall we.
Speaker 2: This is ironic as Ford was probably the most decorated
Speaker 2: athlete ever to occupy the White House. Though he may
Speaker 2: be the least remembered president since World War Two, he
Speaker 2: inherited a unique and very difficult situation. Nixon's resignation didn't
Speaker 2: end the problems of Watergate. Ford had to tread carefully.
Speaker 2: Here is Ford at his swearing in ceremony.
Speaker 4: My fellow Americans, our long national nightmare is over. Our
Speaker 4: constitution works.
Speaker 5: Our great Republic is a government of laws and not
Speaker 5: of man. Here the people rule, but there is a
Speaker 5: higher power, by whatever name, we honor him who ordains
Speaker 5: not only righteousness but love, not only justice but mercy.
Speaker 5: As we bind up the internal wounds of Watergate, more
Speaker 5: painful and more poison than those of foreign wars, let
Speaker 5: us restore the golden rule to our political process, and
Speaker 5: let brotherly love purge our hearts of suspicion and of hate.
Speaker 2: Gerald Ford is the only person to ascend to the
Speaker 2: presidency without being elected as either president or vice president.
Speaker 2: How did this anomaly occur? Mostly due to the historic
Speaker 2: corruption of the Richard Nixon White House. The Nixon administration
Speaker 2: was so corrupt that his own Attorney General, Elliot Richardson,
Speaker 2: had to force the vice president, a former governor of
Speaker 2: Maryland named Spiro Agnew, to resign before Nixon was impeached.
Speaker 2: The optics of impeaching Nixon and then immediately impeaching his
Speaker 2: successor were not tenable. Agnew, among other things, had been
Speaker 2: engaged in the most straightforward kind of political corruption, receiving
Speaker 2: kickback contracts awarded to companies doing business with the state,
Speaker 2: and even to Baltimore County when he served as county executive.
Speaker 2: Any argument that this corruption did not extend to his
Speaker 2: time as Vice president was rendered moot by the testimony
Speaker 2: of a man named Lester Mattz, who, as owner of
Speaker 2: an engineering firm, had not only kicked back five percent
Speaker 2: of agnew arranged contracts dating back to his Baltimore County days,
Speaker 2: but it actually met with Agnew at the White House
Speaker 2: and handed him ten thousand dollars in cash. Attorney General
Speaker 2: Richardson had Agnew backed into a corner, and the Vice
Speaker 2: President submitted his resignation to Nixon on October ninth, nineteen
Speaker 2: seventy three. It's a fascinating story that you can hear
Speaker 2: on the podcast bag Man. The next day, October tenth,
Speaker 2: Nixon needed to move to name a new vice president.
Speaker 2: His nominee would then need to be approved by Congress,
Speaker 2: then controlled by the Democrats. Nixon himself was under legal
Speaker 2: pressure as he was negotiating with Special Prosecutor Archibald Cox
Speaker 2: over the release of tapes of Oval Office meetings. Though
Speaker 2: Nixon did not believe that the collection of events that
Speaker 2: we now know as Watergate threatened his ability to continue
Speaker 2: as president, times were tense. In his speech announcing his
Speaker 2: nomination afford to be the new president, Nixon laid out
Speaker 2: the criteria he used to make his decision.
Speaker 11: Let me tell you what the criteria were that I
Speaker 11: had in mind. First, and above all, the individual who
Speaker 11: serves as vice president must be qualified to be president.
Speaker 11: And second, the individual who serves as.
Speaker 8: Vice president of the United States must be one who
Speaker 8: shares the views of the president on the critical issues
Speaker 8: of foreign policy and national defense, which is so important
Speaker 8: if we are play our great role, our destined role
Speaker 8: to keep peace in the world. And Third, at this
Speaker 8: particular time, when we have the executive in the hands
Speaker 8: of one party and the Congress controlled by another party,
Speaker 8: it is vital that the vice president of the United
Speaker 8: States be an individual who can work with members of
Speaker 8: both parties in the Congress in getting approval or those
Speaker 8: programs of the administration which we consider our vital for
Speaker 8: the national interest.
Speaker 2: Nixon wanted to name John Connolly, who he greatly respected.
Speaker 2: Connolly was a conservative Democrat who had been John F.
Speaker 2: Kennedy's secretary of the Navy before leaving to become governor
Speaker 2: of Texas. He was sitting beside Kennedy when Kennedy was
Speaker 2: assassinated in Dallas and was wounded by the so called
Speaker 2: magic bullet. He served for a year as Nixon's Treasury secretary,
Speaker 2: and then resigned to support Nixon's nineteen seventy two re
Speaker 2: election campaign with the organization Democrats for Nixon. Connolly met
Speaker 2: the first two criteria, but advisors told Nixon that he
Speaker 2: would not be confirmed in the House of Representatives. Disappointed,
Speaker 2: Nixon looked at the remaining field of possibilities and decided
Speaker 2: on Ford. Nixon had known Ford since nineteen forty eight,
Speaker 2: when both men had been in the House of Representatives.
Speaker 2: Ford joined a group of junior House members that Nixon
Speaker 2: had helped to organize, called the Chowder and Marching Club.
Speaker 2: Nixon had hinted to Ford before his runs for president
Speaker 2: in nineteen sixty and nineteen sixty eight that he would
Speaker 2: consider him as a running mate. He didn't follow through, though,
Speaker 2: in fact, Nixon did not think highly of Ford's abilities.
Speaker 2: Hr Haldeman, Nixon's chief of staff, believed that the House
Speaker 2: members knew Ford well enough that the thought of him
Speaker 2: as president would prevent them from impeaching Nixon. Secretary of
Speaker 2: State Henry Kissinger was similarly underwhelmed, but Nixon had decided.
Speaker 2: Two things made the choice cazier. First, Nixon didn't believe
Speaker 2: that he'd have to leave office, so Ford would never
Speaker 2: be president. Second, Ford said that he'd retire in January
Speaker 2: of nineteen seventy seven, when the new president was sworn in.
Speaker 2: Ford wouldn't run for president in nineteen seventy six, even
Speaker 2: though Nixon wouldn't be eligible having served two terms. This
Speaker 2: would allow Nixon's favorite John Connolly to have the inside
Speaker 2: track to the Republican nomination. On October twelfth, Nixon nominated
Speaker 2: Ford as his new vice president. On November twenty seventh,
Speaker 2: the Senate approved him by a vote of ninety two
Speaker 2: to three. On December sixth, the House followed suit. He
Speaker 2: was sworn in immediately following his confirmation by the House
Speaker 2: of Representatives.
Speaker 12: Mister President, Members of the Congress, and distinguished guests, I
Speaker 12: have the high personal honor of presenting to you a
Speaker 12: dear friend and former Holly, whom we shall oh miss,
Speaker 12: but whom we all congratulate, the Vice President of the
Speaker 12: United States.
Speaker 2: Nine months later, on August ninth, nineteen seventy four, after
Speaker 2: Nixon resigned from office, Ford was again sworn in, this
Speaker 2: time as the thirty eighth President of the United States.
Speaker 2: He would assume an office that had been severely damaged
Speaker 2: by the corruption of the Nixon administration. In trying to
Speaker 2: restore honor to the post, he would have to fail
Speaker 2: a question of what to do about Richard Nixon after
Speaker 2: the break. Gerald Ford became the President of the United
Speaker 2: States after Richard Nixon resigned in the face of congressional
Speaker 2: hearings that had revealed the corruption within his administration. If
Speaker 2: this was not enough of a challenge, he was also
Speaker 2: the first man to hold the office without being elected
Speaker 2: on a presidential ticket.
Speaker 7: The nineteen seventies was a very difficult time to be president,
Speaker 7: and Ford was in an unenviable situation inheriting what was
Speaker 7: really a wounded presidency after Richard Nixon's resignation. My name's
Speaker 7: Janik Mishkowski. I'm a presidential historian and I teach at
Speaker 7: the Florida Institute of Technology. I've written a book on
Speaker 7: Gerald Ford's presidency called Yer Old Ford and the Challenges
Speaker 7: of the nineteen seventies. Nobody trusted the president anymore because
Speaker 7: a president Richard Nixon had been caught lying and was
Speaker 7: forced to resign in disgrace.
Speaker 13: Therefore, I shall resign the presidency affected that noon tomorrow.
Speaker 13: Vice President Ford, we'll be swelling in as president at
Speaker 13: that hour in this office.
Speaker 7: So Ford inherited an office that really was tainted. And
Speaker 7: you have to even go back further in time than that.
Speaker 7: Lyndon Johnson had done a lot to damage the presidency
Speaker 7: because of getting the country into the Vietnam War, lying
Speaker 7: about the war itself, and the prosecution of the war,
Speaker 7: and how badly the US was actually doing during the war.
Speaker 14: We fight because we must fight if we're to live
Speaker 14: in a world where every country can shape its own destiny,
Speaker 14: and only in such a world will our own freedom
Speaker 14: be finally secure.
Speaker 7: In addition to all of that, you had the ongoing
Speaker 7: Cold War, you had the ignominious withdrawal of America from
Speaker 7: Vietnam when South Vietnam was finally defeated by North Vietnam
Speaker 7: in nineteen seventy five, a damaged Republican party because of Watergate,
Speaker 7: and then the nineteen seventy four midterms were just a
Speaker 7: disaster for the Republicans and for Gerald Ford, who was
Speaker 7: leading the party. So it was a very very difficult
Speaker 7: situation for Ford.
Speaker 2: But if you had to construct a person who would
Speaker 2: embody the qualities that Middle Americans were looking for and
Speaker 2: a president. You could have done a lot worse than
Speaker 2: Gerald Ford. Ford's background fairly screams establishment. During his childhood
Speaker 2: in Grand Rapids, Michigan, he was both an Eagle scout
Speaker 2: and the captain of the high school football team. He
Speaker 2: went to the University of Michigan, where again he was
Speaker 2: a football star. He graduated in nineteen thirty five. Three
Speaker 2: years later he entered Yale Law School, graduating in nineteen
Speaker 2: forty one. He enlisted in the Navy after the bombing
Speaker 2: of Pearl Harbor. For eighteen months in nineteen forty three
Speaker 2: and nineteen forty four, he was aboard the USS Materree
Speaker 2: and was involved in several military actions. After the Navy,
Speaker 2: he returned to Grand Rapids, where he won his first
Speaker 2: race for Congress in nineteen forty eight. He served in
Speaker 2: Congress from then until nineteen seventy three, when he was
Speaker 2: named vice president. Despite his seemingly ideal background and ascension
Speaker 2: to House Minority leader in nineteen sixty five, Ford did
Speaker 2: not have much of a national profile.
Speaker 7: The public knew him as a member of the Warren
Speaker 7: Commission investigating John F. Kennedy's assassination. They knew him as
Speaker 7: minority leader of the House in the nineteen sixties and
Speaker 7: then Vice president for eight months before ascending to the presidency.
Speaker 15: His role was.
Speaker 7: Basically to shore up a foundering party as the walls
Speaker 7: of Watergate were closing in, and so he was traveling
Speaker 7: the country a lot. His images President was as a
Speaker 7: nice guy, and he truly was a nice person. I
Speaker 7: know this from having interviewed him getting to know him.
Speaker 7: He was a very kind hearted, open hearted person.
Speaker 2: The immediate and unavoidable issue facing forward upon taking office
Speaker 2: was what to do about Nixon. The situation was unprecedented.
Speaker 2: A former president was facing a jury trial for alleged
Speaker 2: crimes committed during his presidency. How would the country react
Speaker 2: to the spectacle, how would an impartial jury be found,
Speaker 2: and would a trial overwhelm the government's ability to accomplish anything.
Speaker 2: Ford was clear that he had to quote get the
Speaker 2: monkey off my back. He was going to pardon Nixon.
Speaker 2: In the days leading up to the announcement, Ford had
Speaker 2: a lawyer named Beton Becker visit Nixon in California to
Speaker 2: see how he was holding up. The report was not good.
Speaker 2: Becker later said, my initial impression was unhappily one of
Speaker 2: freakish grotesqueness. Nixon's arms and body were so diminished so
Speaker 2: as to quote project a headsize disproportionate to a body.
Speaker 2: Becker further reported that at times Nixon was alert, and
Speaker 2: at others he appeared to drift. This report seems to
Speaker 2: have strengthened Ford's determination to pardon Nixon. He held a
Speaker 2: meeting with congressional leaders to announce that he intended to
Speaker 2: go ahead with a pardon. They were stunned. House speaker
Speaker 2: Tip O'Neil said that he hoped it was not a
Speaker 2: part of some deal with Nixon. Ford assured him that
Speaker 2: it was not. Ford said that Nixon was a sick man. Depressed.
Speaker 2: O'Neill responded that he saw his point of view, but
Speaker 2: that it was too soon. Ford went ahead anyway. He
Speaker 2: announced the pardon just passed eleven am on September eighth,
Speaker 2: one month after Nixon's resignation. Public and congressional outrage was expected,
Speaker 2: and it came here. Ford response to Congresswoman Elizabeth Holtzman
Speaker 2: of New York, who had played a prominent role during
Speaker 2: the impeachment hearings.
Speaker 9: Mister Ford, you stated that the theory on which you
Speaker 9: pardoned Richard Nixon was that he had suffered enough. And
Speaker 9: I'm interested in that theory because the logical consequence of
Speaker 9: that is that somebody who resigns in the face of
Speaker 9: virtually certain impeachment, or somebody who is impeached, should not
Speaker 9: be punished, because the impeachment or the resignation and facem
Speaker 9: impeachment is punishment enough. And I wondered whether anybody had
Speaker 9: brought to your attention the fact that the Constitution specifically
Speaker 9: says that even though somebody is impeached, that person shall
Speaker 9: nonetheless be liable to punishment according to law.
Speaker 15: Missus Holtzman, I was fully cognizant of the fact that
Speaker 15: the president, on resignation, was accountable for any criminal charges.
Speaker 15: But I would like to say that the reason I
Speaker 15: gave the pardon was not as to mister Nixon himself.
Speaker 15: I repeat, and I repeat with emphasis. The purpose of
Speaker 15: the pardon was to try and get the United States,
Speaker 15: the Congress, the President, and the American people focusing on
Speaker 15: the serious problems we have both at home and abroad.
Speaker 15: And I was absolutely convinced then as I am now,
Speaker 15: that if we had had this series, an indictment, a trial,
Speaker 15: a conviction, and anything else that transpired after that, that
Speaker 15: the attention of the President, the Congress, and the American
Speaker 15: people would have been diverted from the problems that we
Speaker 15: have to solve, and that was the principal reason for
Speaker 15: migranting of the pardon.
Speaker 2: The press, too, was appalled by the pardon. The Washington
Speaker 2: Post called it quote nothing less than the continuation of
Speaker 2: the cover up. The New York Times says it was
Speaker 2: quote a body blow to the president's own credibility and
Speaker 2: to the public's reviving confidence in the integrity of its government.
Speaker 2: Ford later admitted that he hadn't anticipated the ferocity of
Speaker 2: the response, but it did seem to allow him room
Speaker 2: to move forward with a limited agenda and was in
Speaker 2: that respect a success. Over time, anger at this decision abated,
Speaker 2: and the media consensus seemed to coaluce around the view that,
Speaker 2: in fact, partoning Nixon had helped heal the nation. Ford
Speaker 2: parted Nixon for the crimes the former president committed in
Speaker 2: office at a time when the nation was consumed with
Speaker 2: what seemed to be an increasing tide of crime, particularly
Speaker 2: violent crime.
Speaker 7: There were a few big issues dominating Americans concerns in
Speaker 7: the nineteen seventies, inflation certainly was one, the energy crisis,
Speaker 7: the ongoing Cold War, but crime was a big issue also.
Speaker 7: Newsweeklies like not only Time, which is still around today,
Speaker 7: but Newsweek, US News, and World Report, which aren't around anymore,
Speaker 7: They all had stories, often cover stories, on crime in
Speaker 7: the nineteen seventies.
Speaker 2: In fact, just a couple of months before Ford's second
Speaker 2: September trip to the West Coast, Time magazine featured this
Speaker 2: concern about crime. The cover photo was an extreme close
Speaker 2: up of a man in a balaklava pointing a gun
Speaker 2: at the camera. The lead article began like.
Speaker 1: This, America has been far from successful in dealing with
Speaker 1: the sort of crime that obsesses Americans day and night.
Speaker 1: I mean street crime, crime that invades our neighborhoods and
Speaker 1: our homes. Murders, robberies, rapes, muggings, hold ups, breakouts, the
Speaker 1: kind of brutal violence that makes us fearful of strangers
Speaker 1: and afraid to go out at night. So said President
Speaker 1: Gerald Ford last week, as he sent a special message
Speaker 1: to Congress on a subject that has long plagued the
Speaker 1: nation and frustrated several administrations, the nation's continuing crime wave.
Speaker 3: Ford's second trip to California in September of nineteen seventy five.
Speaker 3: Took place in the shadow of Lynett From's assassination attempt
Speaker 3: and the perception that America was in the midst of
Speaker 3: a national crime wave. This trip would again put forward
Speaker 3: in harm's way. The story of this next attempt begins
Speaker 3: nearly two years before Ford arrives in San Francisco with
Speaker 3: an event that stunned and obsessed the nation and illuminated
Speaker 3: the chasm between Middle America and the radical young.
Speaker 6: I want to get out of here, but I'm the
Speaker 6: only way I'm going.
Speaker 1: To is if we do it their.
Speaker 3: Way next time. On Rip Current.
Speaker 1: Rip Current was created and written by Toby Ball and
Speaker 1: developed with Alexander Williams. Hosted by Toby Ball with Mary
Speaker 1: Catherine Garrison. Original music by Jeff Sanoff, Show art by
Speaker 1: God and Charles Rudder. Producers Jesse funk, Rema O'Kelly and
Speaker 1: Noams Griffin, Supervising producer Trevor Young, Executive producers Alexander Williams
Speaker 1: and Matt Frederick Hear. Episodes of Rip Current early completely
Speaker 1: add free and receive exclusive bonus content by subscribing to
Speaker 1: iHeart True Crime Plus only on Apple Podcasts. For more
Speaker 1: podcasts from iHeartRadio, visit the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or
Speaker 1: wherever you listen to your favorite shows, and visit our
Speaker 1: website ripcurrentpod dot com