Betty Ford: First Lady

by Lisa McCubbin

  “Betty, why don’t you say grace tonight,” Jerry said. The four of them bowed their heads in prayer as Betty thanked the Lord for their many blessings.

  “Amen,” they said in unison. And then the phone rang.

  Susan jumped up. Could this be the call? She grabbed the phone off the hook and answered, “Hello?”

  As soon as she heard the voice on the other end of the line, a crestfallen look washed across her face. She held the phone out to her mother, the twenty-five-foot-long cord twisting in tight curls, and said, “It’s only Mike. Here, Mom, he wants to talk to you.”

  Mike had seen the reports in the newspaper, and he, too, wanted to know what was going on. Susan had barely sat back down at the table when the upstairs phone rang.

  The upstairs phone. The single line in her parents’ bedroom that connected directly to the White House. It had been installed when Jerry became minority leader, eight years earlier, and the only other times she’d heard that phone ring was when they did the annual test. She leaped out of her chair and ran up the stairs.

  Breathless, she answered, “Hello?”

  A female voice said, “This is the White House calling for Mr. Ford.”

  Susan’s eyes widened. Even for a kid who had grown up in the Washington political arena, to hear “the White House calling” was, like, wow.

  In the most mature voice she could muster, she answered, “Yes, just one moment, please. I’ll get him on the line for you.”

  Holding one hand over the mouthpiece, she shouted downstairs, “Da-ad! It’s the White House!”

  Jerry raced up the stairs and into the bedroom. Susan could hardly contain her excitement as she handed her father the phone.

  “This is Jerry Ford,” he answered.

  General Alexander Haig, the White House chief of staff, came on the line and said, “The president wants to talk to you.” Then, a second later, it was President Nixon’s voice.

  “Jerry, I’ve got good news, and I think Betty ought to hear it too.”

  “Well, I’m sorry, Mr. President,” Jerry said, “but I’m on a line that has no extension. Can you hang up and call back on the other number?”

  As he hung up the phone, Susan looked at him, incredulous. “Daddy, did you just tell the president of the United States to hang up and call back?”

  “He wants to speak to your mother and me at the same time,” Jerry replied. His voice was calm, but then, as he headed down the stairs, he heard Betty, still talking to Mike, and there was a sudden sense of urgency.

  “Betty!” he hollered. “Get off the phone! The president wants to call!”

  Betty hung up quickly, and seconds later, before she could fully comprehend what was happening, the phone rang again. She stood there, stunned, as Jerry dashed into the office, adjacent to the kitchen, and picked up the phone.

  “Yes, Mr. President,” he said. “Betty’s getting on the line now.” He nodded to Betty, pointing to the kitchen phone.

  Betty could hardly believe what she was hearing. The rumors were true. The reporters had been right. Susan was right. President Nixon was nominating Jerry as his vice president. In less than two hours, the president was going to make the announcement from the East Room on live television, and he wanted both Jerry and Betty to be there.

  The conversation was brief, and as soon as they disconnected, Jerry walked back into the kitchen. Betty was frozen in place.

  “Don’t worry, Betty,” Jerry said as he put his arms around her. “We’ll be okay. Vice presidents don’t do anything. Everything’s going to be fine.”

  Susan, realizing her mother was in a state of shock—and that they had no time to waste—took charge. “Mother, we’ve got to find you something to wear!”

  Once again she raced up the stairs, and by the time Betty got up there, Susan was already flipping through her mother’s wardrobe. “It can’t be a print, and it can’t be black. It should be a pretty color . . .

  “What do you want to look like?”

  They narrowed it down to an elegant, long-sleeved, chartreuse green dress that had a loose high-neck collar, a fitted waistline that fell into soft pleats, and a matching belt that accentuated Betty’s slim figure.

  Still in a daze, Betty slipped out of her blouse and slacks as Susan waded into the closet to find shoes and a purse to match. Betty put on the dress and then went into the bathroom to touch up her makeup. There wasn’t time to fuss with her hair, so she simply ran a comb through it and spritzed a layer of hairspray.

  Jerry walked into the room and said, “Come on, Betty, we need to go now. Frazier’s got the car running.”

  “I’m almost ready,” she said as she dabbed at her lipstick.

  In the twenty-five years they’d been married, if there was one thing that frustrated Jerry about his wife, it was that she often kept him waiting. There was always “just one more thing” she had to do. A change of earrings, an extra swipe of blush on her cheeks. It was her way of taking control. And perhaps a little bit of revenge for all the times he wasn’t there.

  “Betty . . .” Jerry said. “We’ve got to go now.”

  “I think she was scared to death,” Susan recalled years later.

  With one last look in the mirror, Betty gathered up her courage, and then looked straight into her husband’s eyes with love and pride, and said, “Let’s go.”

  Because President Nixon wanted to keep his nominee a secret until the very last moment, Jerry was directed into the East Room, where he took his seat with the other members of Congress, while aides snuck Betty into Nixon’s secretary’s office through a side door. Betty sat nervously, watching the live news coverage on a small television set as the actual events were unfolding on the other side of the White House. After nearly ten minutes of anxiety-building suspense, you could tell Nixon was finally going to reveal the name of his choice for vice president.

  “Time to go!” the aide said to Betty. They made “a mad dash” through the White House, and as they approached the East Room, Betty could hear people clapping and cheering. President Nixon was listing the criteria he had used in choosing his nominee, and when he announced that the man he had selected had served twenty-five years in Congress, everyone had bolted from their chairs, assuming it was Jerry Ford. The ovation went on for nearly a full minute.

  Finally, President Nixon announced, “Distinguished guests and my fellow Americans, I proudly present to you the man whose name I will submit to the Congress of the United States for confirmation as the vice president of the United States, Congressman Gerald Ford of Michigan.”

  Before Nixon had even finished the sentence, the entire audience was on its feet, whooping and hollering, clearly pleased with the president’s choice.

  Jerry made his way to the podium, smiling with pride, and as the rousing applause continued, he scanned the room looking for Betty. Suddenly he saw the flash of her green dress out of the corner of his eye as she appeared in the doorway, being led in by a female staff member.

  “Here’s Betty,” Ford whispered to Nixon. “Shall I call her up here?”

  “Not yet,” Nixon said under his breath. He was beaming, reveling in the enthusiastic ovation.

  As Betty walked into the room, she had no idea where she was supposed to go or what she was expected to do. The aide whispered, “Go sit with Mrs. Nixon.”

  The first lady was at the end of the row of chairs, with daughters Tricia and Julie, and Julie’s husband, David Eisenhower, seated next to them.

  The standing ovation continued, with all eyes on the podium, as Betty crept gingerly toward her longtime friend, Pat. The only problem was, there wasn’t an empty chair. All this pomp and circumstance, and no one had thought to reserve a chair for the wife of the nominee.

  The applause died down, and everyone began to take their seats. “They told me to sit with you,” Betty whispered.

  “Oh yes, of course,” Pat said as she scooted over to allow Betty to share the chair.

  Jerry made a few remarks a
nd then, finally, she was invited onto the stage to stand next to her husband and the president of the United States. Betty smiled as the crowd stood and clapped. Some even cheered. As the applause went on and on, cameras clicking, lights flashing, she looked over at Pat Nixon, and the soberness of the situation slowly began to sink in. A mix of excitement and sheer terror was building inside her.

  Off to the side, Dick Keiser, the special agent in charge of President Nixon’s Secret Service detail, was standing next to Jerry Bechtle—the newly assigned agent in charge of the new vice president’s detail.

  “Come on, Jerry,” Keiser said, “let me have President Nixon introduce you to Jerry Ford.”

  Keiser approached Nixon and asked if he’d make the introduction.

  “Sure,” President Nixon said. People had surrounded Jerry and Betty, offering congratulations, when the president and the two Secret Service agents broke through the crowd.

  “Jerry,” Nixon said, “I’d like you to meet Jerry Bechtle. He’s the agent in charge of your Secret Service detail.”

  Jerry Ford reached out to shake Bechtle’s hand and said, “Nice to meet you, Agent Bechtle.” Turning his head to Betty, he said, “And this is my wife, Betty.”

  They exchanged pleasantries, and Bechtle explained that he and a driver would be taking the Fords back to their residence.

  “Okay,” Jerry Ford said agreeably. “Just let us know when it’s time to leave.”

  President Nixon turned to his vice presidential nominee and said flatly, “No, Jerry, you tell him when it’s time to leave. The Secret Service works around your schedule. Not the other way around.”

  Back at 514 Crown View Drive, Susan had invited over some girlfriends to watch the coverage on television. But at the time, she didn’t think it was that big a deal. “I wasn’t convinced that the vice presidency meant much of anything,” she said. “It wasn’t going to affect my life. I was going back to boarding school, and everything was going to be the same as it always was.”

  But things had already begun to change. Steve Ford had gone to the T. C. Williams High School football game that evening—he’d decided to be a spectator rather than a player his senior year—but when he and his friend Kevin Kennedy drove back home, the streets in the neighborhood were all blocked off due to the press and security. So they parked the car a few streets away, and, rather than have to deal with the police, they thought it would be a good idea to climb over the back fence into the Fords’ backyard.

  As the two teenagers were scaling the fence, they were immediately confronted by Secret Service agents armed with loaded guns.

  “What are you doing?!” the agents yelled.

  Terrified, Steve explained that he was Gerald Ford’s son, and he was just trying to get into the house. Looking back years later, Steve said, “It’s funny now, but we were scared to death that night.”

  That week, David Kennerly’s photograph of Gerald Ford staring out the window appeared on the cover of Time. It was the first cover for both. It wouldn’t be the last.

  11

  * * *

  Betty Ford, Second Lady

  The morning after the announcement, Crown View Drive was invaded by the press. “You couldn’t move without bumping into a reporter,” Betty recalled. “You couldn’t go out your front door.”

  And then there was the Secret Service. Even though Jerry still had to be confirmed by both houses of Congress before he would become vice president, because of the unusual circumstances, the Secret Service had decided he needed immediate protection. Everyone else in the family, Betty included, could come and go freely, but the vice president designate required around-the-clock protection. They set up a command post in the garage and used the driveway for the vice presidential limousine and the Secret Service follow-up car. Which meant the Fords had to park their own cars on the street.

  On December 6, it became official. Both the Senate and the House of Representatives voted overwhelmingly in favor of confirming Gerald R. Ford as vice president. Knowing it was probable and imminent, Mike and Jack had come home—Jack had shaved his beard because he wanted to look respectable for his father, and Mike had brought a Jerusalem Bible—an English translation of the Scriptures from the original Hebrew and Greek texts—that he had purchased especially for the occasion.

  Faith ran deep in the family, and for this auspicious event, it was important to Jerry and Betty to have the Bible open to a place that held meaning for them when Jerry took the oath.

  They agreed on Psalm 20, which began, “May [God] answer you in time of trouble . . .”

  It was a historic moment in the House chamber of the US Capitol, being broadcast on live television in America and around the world, and Betty was, literally, center stage. Wearing a long-sleeved turtleneck dress in bright orange wool crepe that popped amid the sea of men in dark suits, Betty stood behind the podium, holding the heavy Bible open to the designated page, with Chief Justice Warren Burger on her right, Jerry on her left, and the president off to her husband’s side.

  Betty held the Bible steady, beaming with pride, as Jerry placed his left hand on the open page and repeated the words prompted by Justice Burger. Up in the gallery, Mike, Jack, Steve, and Susan, sitting next to First Lady Pat Nixon, watched their father make history. When Jerry tripped up a bit on the last phrase, he corrected himself quickly and then laughed at his mistake. Betty looked into his eyes and laughed right along with him.

  The crowd erupted into a standing ovation, and Jerry turned immediately to President Nixon and shook his hand. Then he walked over to Betty, put his right arm around her, and planted a kiss right on her lips. It was a tender moment—and unusual for such a public display of affection—but for everyone who witnessed it, there was no doubt about the love and admiration Jerry and Betty Ford had for each other.

  Even though the new vice president had been minority leader for almost eight years, as the congressman from a small district in Michigan, he was still relatively unknown to most of America, and he realized his acceptance speech was his formal introduction.

  He thanked President Nixon, his fellow members of Congress, and promised not to forget the people of Michigan.

  “I’m a Ford—not a Lincoln,” he quipped. The audience roared with laughter at the double entendre comparing two American automobiles—the Ford, identified with the common man, and the Lincoln, a car associated with the wealthy. Then he exuded humility, admitting his speeches could not match the eloquence of President Abraham Lincoln’s. When the applause died down, he paused and turned to Betty, now seated on the platform off to his right.

  Tears glistened in his eyes as the words formed in his mouth. “For standing by my side, as she always has,” he said, his voice cracking with emotion, “there are no words to tell you, my dear wife and mother of our four wonderful children, how much their being here means to me.”

  As the audience erupted with applause, Betty smiled with appreciation. Up in the galley, the three sons looked at one another, wondering whether they should clap at the mention of themselves, while Susan wiped away a tear. But evident on the faces of all four was the sheer pride in the father they loved and adored. As Americans watched from their living rooms, they saw the Fords as the perfect all-American family: the handsome, athletic father who worked hard to support his family; the beautiful housewife and mother; the four attractive, wholesome children. The kind of family everyone wished they had. Perfect from the outside looking in.

  The first big change was that the Secret Service moved into 514 Crown View Drive. Literally moved in, remodeled, changed the locks, and kept the keys. The agents needed a command post that would be manned twenty-four hours a day, and the only plausible solution was to convert the garage.

  The Secret Service had given its requirements to the General Services Administration, which then had to request money from Congress. Special Agent Jerry Bechtle received confirmation of how much the garage conversion was going to cost, just as Vice President and Mrs. Ford were
headed to a congressional reception. The director of the Secret Service had called Bechtle and told him, “You better tell the vice president the amount so he doesn’t get blindsided at the reception by Congressman Mahon.”

  George H. Mahon, a Texas Democrat who’d been a representative since 1935, headed the Appropriations Committee that would have to approve the changes. In the limo ride to the reception, Bechtle, sitting in the front passenger seat, turned around and said, “Mr. Vice President, the cost estimate has come through for the conversion of your garage, and since you’re liable to get asked about it by Congressman Mahon, I thought I’d better let you know what we’re doing and how much it will be.”

  “All right,” Vice President Ford said, “how much?”

  “With all the communications we have to install and the construction on the house, it’s going to be fifty thousand dollars.”

  Jerry and Betty looked at each other, their eyes wide in disbelief. Then they both burst out laughing.

  “My God,” Vice President Ford said, “the house cost only thirty-five thousand.”

  The driveway was already suffering from the weight of the armored vice presidential limousine, so the decision was made to dig out the driveway and replace the two garage doors with a solid brick wall and a bay window above. Inside, they would install a bathroom, a kitchenette, and a small sitting room, along with a complex electronic security and communication system. Holes were drilled for metal detectors and alarms; the windows would be fitted with bulletproof glass. Two structures that looked like telephone booths were set up in the corners of the backyard: sentry boxes for the Secret Service agents to stand post in inclement weather. Meanwhile, all the stuff that had previously filled the garage—bicycles, ladders, skis, rakes, a lawnmower—was crammed alongside the swimming pool until a shed could be built.

  The Fords were so concerned about the disruption to the neighborhood, they wrote a letter apologizing for the inconvenience and placed it in each neighbor’s mailbox.