Episode Details

Gerald Ford was the only person to serve as both vice president and president without being elected to either office. Saturday Night Live turned him into a stumbling buffoon, but the real Ford was a Yale Law graduate, a decorated Navy veteran, and a college football star who turned down two NFL offers. His pardon of Nixon may have cost him the 1976 election, but historians now consider it one of the most courageous presidential decisions of the twentieth century.

This episode traces Ford from his Grand Rapids childhood through the Warren Commission, the vice presidency thrust upon him by Agnew's resignation, and the twenty-nine-month presidency defined by the pardon that history eventually vindicated.

• Ford's athletic youth — a football star who turned down the NFL to attend Yale Law School
• Twenty-five years in Congress and the Warren Commission appointment that raised his profile
• The unprecedented accession — replacing Agnew as VP, then Nixon as president, without a single vote
• The Nixon pardon, the political cost, and the historical reassessment that called it an act of courage