Betty Ford: First Lady, Women's Advocate, Survivor, Trailblazer

by Lisa McCubbin

  “No tribute could be more spectacular,” the commander in chief said. The sailing vessels, which had come from twenty-two nations, were “an escort of grace and beauty into the third century.”

  It was an incredible sight. Even more spectacular was the sight looking down from the helicopter. Millions of New Yorkers were everywhere: hanging out of windows, standing on rooftops, throngs of people gathered along the Hudson River, and surrounding the Statue of Liberty on Ellis Island. After the traumas of Vietnam and Watergate that had so divided the nation, the bicentennial celebration was something around which all Americans could unite. The day ended back at the White House, and as night fell, Betty and Jerry gathered with a small group of friends and family to watch the dazzling fireworks show over the Washington Monument. Standing on the Truman Balcony, as the colorful bursts lit the night sky, Betty and Jerry stood with their arms around each other, exhausted and overwhelmed by the magnificent sight.

  Three days later, President and Mrs. Ford hosted Queen Elizabeth II and Prince Philip for what Betty would recall as the “most glamorous” state dinner during her time in the White House. Plans for the white-tie dinner had been in the works for months, and anyone who had any connection whatsoever was vying for an invitation to what some were calling “the social event of the century.” It didn’t disappoint.

  As with all the state dinners, Betty was very involved with every detail. She and the president had gone over the guest list together, which included Lady Bird Johnson, Ella Fitzgerald, Cary Grant, Willie Mays, Billy Graham, Barbara Walters, David Brinkley, and two celebrities specifically requested by the queen herself: comedian Bob Hope and actor Telly Savalas, who was then starring in the popular crime drama Kojak. Betty had spent hours with social secretary Maria Downs drawing up the seating chart, and for the musical entertainment, they’d invited one of the most popular duos at the time, the Captain and Tennille. Dinner would be elegant American cuisine: New England lobster, followed by “Saddle of Veal” with rice and broccoli, and ending with dessert of “Peach Ice Cream Bombe” and fresh raspberries.

  The day began with a grand arrival ceremony, after which President and Mrs. Ford brought the queen and the prince upstairs to the Yellow Oval Room for a private lunch that included Susan and Jack, both of whom were living at the White House at that time. Afterward, Queen Elizabeth and Prince Philip returned to Blair House to prepare for the evening’s festivities.

  For the dinner, Betty had chosen an elegant mint-green chiffon gown with a lace neckline and flowing sheer sleeves designed by Luis Estévez. Just as she was dressed and ready to go downstairs and greet the royal couple, Jack, who was on hiatus from college, came rushing into the bedroom, searching for studs to put into the shirtfront of his rented tuxedo.

  “You’re never going to be ready,” an exasperated Betty huffed, as Jack rummaged through his father’s drawer. There was no time to help him search. Betty and the president had to get downstairs to greet their royal guests.

  After the initial pleasantries in the main hall, President and Mrs. Ford brought the queen and the prince upstairs for some quiet time before the festivities began.

  “Mrs. Ford wanted guests to have a good time, and she worked to put people at ease from the moment the head of state arrived at the White House,” assistant secretary Matson recalled. “They would be escorted upstairs to the personal living room in the family quarters. Mrs. Ford understood that a formal dinner at the White House might be nervous-making for guests, and her natural warmth and empathy for others cut across diplomatic lines.”

  As the elevator doors opened at the second floor, “Jack came flying in, still fiddling with his shirtfront,” Betty recalled. “He stood there, mouth open, gaping at the four of us.”

  Without missing a beat, Queen Elizabeth, dressed in a citron-colored organza gown bedecked with medals, a diamond tiara perched on her head, turned to Betty and, smiling sweetly, quipped, “I have one just like [him] at home.”

  An elaborate dinner was served in a big tent outside the Rose Garden. “We had violinists stationed along the paths, and to be out in the gorgeous night air, with the moon shining down, and the violins playing as you walked by, was unforgettable,” Betty remembered.

  Unfortunately, the queen’s first dance was also unforgettable. The US Marine Band had a set list of songs to play for the evening, and the tunes were organized in groupings of three. There were no titles on the music, they were listed only by number. The band had just finished one song, when President Ford escorted Queen Elizabeth out to the dance floor. The crowd parted, and the band began to play the next song on its list: which just so happened to be “The Lady Is a Tramp.” It was purely coincidental, but it would go down in the annals of White House history as one of the most embarrassing gaffes ever.

  Rain poured outside the tent, but nothing could dampen the evening. Captain and Tennille sang their hit “Muskrat Love,” Bob Hope had everyone in stitches with his one-liner comedy routine, and the dancing went on and on and on. It was after midnight when the royal guests finally departed, but Betty and the president weren’t ready for the night to end. When the band started playing “Chattanooga Choo Choo,” Betty grabbed Bob Hope’s hand, and the two performed an impromptu floor show for the guests. Everyone loved it, and no one more than Betty herself. She had played hostess to a queen, but on this night, Betty was America’s princess. Finally, just before two in the morning, she wanted one last dance with her husband. Swaying cheek to cheek under the crystal chandeliers, Betty was thrilled with the way the evening had turned out.

  “If I hadn’t kept mixing up Your Highness and Your Majesty—he’s His Highness, she’s Her Majesty—I’d give myself four stars for the way that visit went off,” she wrote.

  The next day, the first lady’s staff came in, and there on the wall outside their offices was a poster-sized photo of Betty Ford dancing with the incredibly handsome legendary film star Cary Grant.

  Betty had written an inscription on the photo: “Eat your hearts out, girls!”

  “That gives you a sense of a certain playfulness of her humor,” Patti Matson recalled. “She liked us to enjoy ourselves . . . she had a sense of perspective. Work didn’t have to be a grind; you could accomplish things and have a good time too.”

  But amid the good times, something was happening to Betty, and as the campaign wore on, members of the first lady’s staff began to become more and more worried about her.

  “Mrs. Ford used to be visited periodically by her arthritis specialist,” recalled her personal assistant, Nancy Chirdon. Betty had been seeing him since they’d lived in Alexandria. “He loved coming to the White House, but there was no member of the staff or family that appreciated his visits,” Nancy said. “He would come up and talk to her, visit with her, but after each visit, the next day—and the next week—she couldn’t function well.”

  One of Nancy’s responsibilities was packing the first lady’s pillbox: a black case that held all of Mrs. Ford’s prescription medications.

  “There had to be at least ten bottles lined up side by side in the case,” she recalled. “She took it with her all the time.” One of the prescriptions was her chemo treatment, which she had to take monthly, but Nancy didn’t know exactly what everything else was. “When she had an episode of pain, she’d take a pill. She didn’t feel comfortable speaking in public unless it was just off the cuff,” Nancy explained. “She just felt as if everything hung on her words. She was conscious during the campaign of her popularity and also of her controversy. The West Wing powers that be and the campaign officials weren’t always happy with her, which caused even more pressure, which caused even more pain.”

  There appeared to be a clear correlation between her stress level and her pain, and the relentless campaign travel schedule made it worse. “We had different mattresses, different pillows, everything was different,” Nancy said. Because Betty never knew when the pain would strike, a navy nurse was assigned to travel with her. The nurse would
provide hot compresses and massage, but Betty was in complete control of her own medication and took it as needed.

  Nancy began to notice dramatic changes in her boss: the first lady’s energy was low, she experienced mood swings, and more and more frequently, she was slurring her words. “She didn’t seem to be there.”

  Press Secretary Sheila Weidenfeld also started noticing the changes, and it worried her—not only for Betty’s health but also for the image she was projecting as the wife of the presidential candidate. At a reception at the Claremont Hotel in Oakland, California, Sheila recalled that Mrs. Ford “looked exhausted and sounded as though she were having trouble concentrating.” She had actually referred to herself as “president,” but quickly realized it and added, “Actually, you know, I was president of the Senate wives when my husband was only vice president. I used to kid him about that all the time!”

  But then she rambled on about fate and God, without seeming to have a clear point. Later that evening, Sheila mentioned it to one of the Secret Service agents.

  “I think she’s being overscheduled,” he said. “You can only push a human being so far, especially a delicate lady like Mrs. Ford. They’re overpushing.”

  The problem grew worse. Everywhere Betty went, she was greeted with tremendous enthusiasm, but as she went from fish frys for fifteen thousand people to hospital dedications, one speech site after another, in and out of limousines and planes, there was more slurred speech.

  Betty noticed the mistakes too, and she was embarrassed. After one speech in which she had “rambled incoherently,” she sobbed to Sheila, “How could I do that? I just can’t get over it. All those stupid mistakes!”

  She vowed never to open her mouth again without a complete text of prepared remarks. Still, Sheila noticed the first lady would be in hysterics one minute, but then she’d pull herself together for a press conference and handle it flawlessly. It was a constant state of highs and lows, completely unpredictable, and while Betty seemed to realize something was wrong, she didn’t know what it was.

  Sheila didn’t understand either. Was it a physical problem or an emotional problem? Or something else altogether? “Where do you draw the line between concerned friend and press secretary?” she wondered.

  Nancy Chirdon became so concerned that she decided to talk to the navy nurse about the situation. They concluded that maybe nobody was looking at the medications the doctors were prescribing.

  “We figured it was the medication because it was a causal effect,” she explained. “You could see the effect it would have on her speech and her demeanor after she would take the medication. But she was like a lot of people, particularly women: when the doctor told you to take something, you take it. And we didn’t question it. So, she would take the medication, and we would notice the effects.”

  After one trip during which Betty’s speech was especially slurred, Nancy told the nurse, “I just think there’s something wrong here. I want to talk to Dr. Lukash.”

  The nurse agreed and offered to come with her. A rear admiral, William Lukash was the nurse’s superior, so they knew this could be an uncomfortable conversation. But they felt they had no choice. They were deeply concerned about the first lady’s health and well-being.

  The two women, both just twenty-six years old, walked into Dr. Lukash’s office, where he was sitting at his desk.

  “Doctor,” Nancy said, “I think that the medication Mrs. Ford is on may be too strong.”

  Doctor Lukash looked at her and stood up, so that he towered over the two petite women.

  “What makes you think so?”

  Nancy described the effects she saw: the slurred speech, the erratic moods, the way she seemed to zone out after taking some of the pills.

  “Those are properly prescribed,” he said with a hint of defensiveness. And then, his eyes piercing into hers, he asked, “Where did you go to medical school?”

  Nancy had not expected this kind of reaction. “I just thought you should be aware,” she added. The nurse backed her up. “Yes, we just thought you should be aware.”

  “Listen,” Dr. Lukash said. “I understand the medications Mrs. Ford is on.”

  “He didn’t say ‘It’s none of your business,’ ” Nancy recalled, but they were dismissed. Nancy never told Mrs. Ford that she and the nurse had gone to Dr. Lukash. “She would have been mortified. And, as far as I know, the medication was never adjusted.”

  Separately, Sheila Weidenfeld also confronted Dr. Lukash, after one particularly bad trip to California.

  “Is Mrs. Ford all right?” Weidenfeld asked the White House physician.

  “What do you mean?” Lukash responded, perplexed. Sheila went on to recount some of the things she’d witnessed. “She was in very bad shape. I’ve never seen her so depressed. I think it’s the pressure. She just can’t take it.”

  “Well, she’s all right now,” Dr. Lukash said. He didn’t think there was anything to worry about. But Sheila persisted. She tried to convince the doctor that the first lady’s schedule was causing unnecessary pressure, and it had to be eased up. Additionally, she added, “The pills she is taking are having a very bad effect on her.”

  “The pills are for her pinched nerve and arthritis,” he explained. Another dismissal.

  The public, and the press, thus far, hadn’t seemed to notice anything unusual. Indeed, Betty’s popularity kept growing. The National Enquirer asked its readers, “Who would make a better president, Gerald Ford or his wife, Betty?” The result: “a clear victory for his wife, 54 percent to 46 percent.”

  Social secretary Maria Downs recalled being with Betty in the elevator one day “when her polls were just skyrocketing, and his were down.” The first lady turned to Maria and said, “Oh, Maria, what I would give to change polls with Jerry.”

  Across the country, buttons and bumper stickers sprang up with slogans such as “Betty’s Husband for President,” “Keep Betty in the White House,” “I Love Betty,” and even “Betty for President.” They weren’t the result of any campaign consultation brainstorm. It happened spontaneously nationwide. And to keep the momentum going, more events were added to the first lady’s schedule.

  The Democrats held their convention at Madison Square Garden in New York City, and on July 15, they selected Georgia governor James “Jimmy” Carter as their presidential nominee. Meanwhile, Ronald Reagan and President Ford were running neck and neck. The Republican nominee would be decided at the Republican National Convention in Kansas City, Missouri, a month later.

  Coming into the convention, it was very close. The magic number of delegates needed to get the nomination was 1,130 and James A. Baker III, who would soon be named President Ford’s campaign manager, was privately projecting that President Ford was going to get 1,135. Not much margin for error.

  The convention opened on Monday, August 16. That night, when Nancy Reagan and Betty Ford entered the convention hall, each received a rousing ovation. The next morning, the press turned it into a popularity contest, won by applause, noting that “the president’s wife was applauded long and noisily, but not so long and noisily as was Ronald Reagan’s wife.”

  The following night, once again the wives came to the hall. Mrs. Ford arrived first, wearing a bright yellow dress. As she stepped into the guest section in Kemper Arena, she pumped her right arm, waving to the crowd with a winner’s gesture. Standing next to her, Susan was dressed in a white T-shirt with a red button pinned to it that said “I Want Betty’s Husband for President,” and on Betty’s other side stood popular singer Tony Orlando. The crowd went crazy, clapping and hollering for a full five minutes.

  An hour later, Mrs. Reagan arrived in a red flowered dress, waving to the crowd as she took her place on the opposite side of the hall. But just as the applause started for her, the convention band started playing “Tie a Yellow Ribbon ’Round the Ole Oak Tree”—the song Orlando and his group Dawn had turned into a number one hit three years earlier. Tony spontaneously grabbed Betty, and t
he two started dancing in the aisle. All heads turned away from Mrs. Reagan and up to the first lady in the yellow dress and her famous dancing partner. The next morning, the headline in the New York Times read: “Betty Ford Bests Nancy Reagan on Applause Scale.”

  It was a nail-biter of a convention, but President Ford ultimately won the delegates needed and became the Republican nominee.

  That final night, President Gerald R. Ford knew his acceptance speech was critical. “Nothing was more important,” he recalled. “It just had to get the campaign off and running.”

  One of his aides brought in a videotape machine so he could watch himself. “At first, it wasn’t too good,” he acknowledged. He worked on his delivery and then gave the speech in front of his most ardent critic.

  “It’s much too long,” Betty said. “And, you know, Jerry, you have a tendency not to smile. You look like you’re ready to shoot someone.”

  “As usual, she was right,” Jerry recalled. They made some cuts, and he worked on smiling.

  When he delivered the thirty-eight-minute speech, the delegates applauded an incredible sixty-five times. At the close, the sounds of bells, whistles, and horns erupted as the crowd chanted its support. President Ford had announced Kansas senator Robert Dole as his running mate, and when the speech concluded, Dole and his wife, Elizabeth, joined Jerry and Betty on the stage, along with Ronald and Nancy Reagan, in a show of party unity.

  With Betty beaming at his side, “Suddenly,” President Ford recalled, “I felt her hand in mine, and all of us—as if by some unspoken signal—clasped our hands and raised them high above our heads.”

  There was a deafening roar from the crowd, and for everyone watching, the love and pride Betty Ford felt for her husband in that moment was unmistakable.

  Coming out of the campaign, a Gallup poll had President Ford trailing Jimmy Carter by 10 points. It was going to be an uphill battle. Jack and Susan had been campaigning all year, but now even Steve, Mike, and Mike’s wife, Gayle, joined in. How things had changed in the two years since their father had been thrust into the White House.