You have GOT to be fucking kidding me!!

[Ken Burch]

53. Nixon insisted on the pardon as his price for resigning.

Ford's mistake wasn't in pardoning Nixon...it was in covering for the fact that it was Nixon's demand.

Ford should just have said "look, the fucker wouldn't go without a pardon&quot he could have more presidential phraseology, of course).

If Ford had done that, he'd likely have beaten Jimmy Carter going away(remember, Carter blew a 30 point lead during that fall campaign).

I'm not saying that as someone who'd have liked to see Ford get re-elected, but it is the hardball political truth.

It's comparable, in one sense, to Humphrey not going public with the proof he had that Nixon's campaign had interfered in the Paris Peace talks in order to prevent a peace agreement being reached before the 1968 election. If Humphrey had done that, Nixon would immediately have been branded a traitor for putting American troops at risk in the name of winning the election, and his support likely would have cratered(I think it's possible Nixon would have finished behind Wallace in that particular scenario).

Weird how, in that era, the operating phrase among the leaders of BOTH parties somehow always seemed to be "whatever you do, always cut Nixon a break".