"When Gerald Ford became president, Americans were ready for an honest, hardworking politician. He was trustworthy, cooperative, and cared deeply about all Americans. His life, tougher than some and filled with character-building lessons, had prepared him for the job. Backmatter includes a letter from the Ford family and a timeline"--

An account of the early life of Gerald R. Ford, up through high school.

"Riveting from start to finish". -- Herbert S. Parmet, author of Richard Nixon and His America.

This biography introduces readers to Gerald Ford, including his early political career and key events from Ford's administration including the Watergate scandal and the Vietnam War. Information about his childhood, family, personal life, and retirement years is included. A timeline, fast facts, and sidebars provide additional information. Aligned to Common Core Standards and correlated to state standards. Big Buddy Books is an imprint of Abdo Publishing, a division of ABDO.

The "accidental" president whose innate decency and steady hand restored the presidency after its greatest crisis When Gerald R. Ford entered the White House in August 1974, he inherited a presidency tarnished by the Watergate scandal, the economy was in a recession, the Vietnam War was drawing to a close, and he had taken office without having been elected. Most observers gave him little chance of success, especially after he pardoned Richard Nixon just a month into his presidency, an action that outraged many Americans, but which Ford thought was necessary to move the nation forward. Many people today think of Ford as a man who stumbled a lot--clumsy on his feet and in politics--but acclaimed historian Douglas Brinkley shows him to be a man of independent thought and conscience, who never allowed party loyalty to prevail over his sense of right and wrong. As a young congressman, he stood up to the isolationists in the Republican leadership, promoting a vigorous role for America in the world. Later, as House minority leader and as president, he challenged the right wing of his party, refusing to bend to their vision of confrontation with the Communist world. And after the fall of Saigon, Ford also overruled his advisers by allowing Vietnamese refugees to enter the United States, arguing that to do so was the humane thing to do. Brinkley draws on exclusive interviews with Ford and on previously unpublished documents (including a remarkable correspondence between Ford and Nixon stretching over four decades), fashioning a masterful reassessment of Gerald R. Ford's presidency and his underappreciated legacy to the nation.

GERALD R. FORD (1913-2006), the thirty-eighth president of the United States, grew up in Grand Rapids, Michigan, and by all accounts modeled exemplary behavior. In this biography Hendrik Booraem carefully examines that image and the reputation that Ford earned during his early years, telling about Ford's life up until his graduation from the University of Michigan in 1935. Booraem uses in-depth research of numerous written sources — plus interviews with some twenty people who personally knew Ford — to show how Jerry Ford excelled at academics and athletics, forging his way through challenges, family difficulties, economic setbacks, and more on his way to a remarkable political career. Booraem's historical portrait offers fascinating insight into the early years of this president who sought to heal the nation at a very low point in its history.

Highlights from the Warren Commission Report that describes the motives, emotions, human problems, and failures of Lee Harvey Oswald, and his family, by a member of the Commission.