Posted on 12/27/2006 3:01:51 PM PST by wagglebee
WASHINGTON -- Over the past several years, Bob Woodward has been secretly interviewing Gerald R. Ford for a book to be published after the former president's death.
Woodward confirmed to NewsMax that he spent "many hours" interviewing Ford on condition that his comments appear after his death. In some cases, when Woodward interviewed key government figures for his latest book, "State of Denial," he asked about Ford as well.
Ford died Tuesday at his home in Rancho Mirage, Calif., where Woodward conducted most of the interviews.
Woodward said today that excerpts from his interviews with Ford will begin running in The Washington Post tomorrow. He said he is "not sure" whether the material will be his next book. However, Woodward has been telling Bush administration insiders the interviews with Ford and key government figures were for his next book.
In the forthcoming account, Woodward will address whether Ford made a deal with Richard Nixon to resign as president in return for the pardon Ford granted him on Sept. 8, 1974 for all federal crimes he had "committed or may have committed" when he was in the White House.
Woodward told me he covered that question in his book "Shadow: Five Presidents and the Legacy of Watergate." That book revealed that Nixon's chief of staff, Alexander Haig, entered Ford's office on Aug. 1, 1974 while Ford was still vice president and Nixon had yet to resign.
Haig listed pardon options, including leaving office in return for an agreement that the new president would pardon him. Ford never accepted the offer from Haig and later decided to pardon Nixon on his own terms, Woodward said in the book, which came out in June 1999.
Last April, Woodward gave a talk at the Gerald R. Ford Presidential Library in Ann Arbor, Mich., commemorating the 25th anniversary of the library. The library is located on the north campus of the University of Michigan, Ford's alma mater.
Woodward told the audience the pardon came as a surprise. The Washington Post reporter, then 31, was in a New York City hotel room when his Watergate colleague Carl Bernstein called him.
"The son of a bitch pardoned the son of a bitch," Bernstein told him.
Immediately, Woodward imagined Nixon and Ford had struck a backroom deal in which the disgraced president would resign and the vice president would take his place in exchange for a full pardon.
"It looked like the continuation of Watergate rather than the end of Watergate," Woodward said in the talk.
Woodward said he grew to admire Ford for his openness — a trait he sees as lacking in the Bush administration. As evidence, he cited Ford's first State of the Union address in 1975. In the speech, Ford spoke bluntly about the economic troubles of the nation, saying "the state of the union is not good."
Woodward said Ford once allowed a reporter from The New York Times to shadow him for a week, day and night.
"Can you imagine Bill Clinton doing that?" Woodward asked. But Woodward said Ford still has an incorrect view of Watergate, believing Nixon's top deputies were more to blame for the misuse of presidential power.
"He did not understand Watergate or Nixon, in my view," Woodward said.
Woodward said that 20 years after leaving office, Ford told him that spin doctors from both parties should be banished from the White House.
"Suppose they did that in the White House today," Woodward said in the talk. "What would they do with all the vacant office space?"
Woodward won the Gerald R. Ford Prize for Distinguished Reporting on the Presidency in 2003.
I hear Woodward just talked to Ford an hour ago.
Woodward sure is the opportunist isn't he?
Now with President Ford dead, he can make up whatever stuff he wants without having to have it pass muster with President Ford.
Can you imgine ANY Clinton telling the truth on ANYTHING negative?
Yeah....right.
"Woodward confirmed to NewsMax that he spent "many hours" interviewing Ford on condition that his comments appear after his death."
How convenient for Mr. Woodward. I hope he has definitive proof...
Bingo.
Damn vulture.
Proof? He's BOB WOODWARD for heanven's sake!
President Ford wasn't available for comment. Let's see it on paper.
*snort*
Seriously, who believes a thing that drips off Woodwards pen?
Bob Whoreword
See? No bias here.
Pathetic pandering puke.
Damn, you took the words right out of my mouth.
Woodward and Bernstein have never gotten over Ford's pardoning of Nixon...lol. Must have cost them untold millions.
Woodward was there at his bedside when he died.
Didn't he claim he interviewed CIA Head Casey when he was in a coma? Hillary must have given him lessons on how to channel the dearly departed.
Woodward seems to specialize in interviewing the dead.
Geez. That might be plagiarism. I'll change mine to ...
Must have cost them untold millions.
I forgot that.
The drunken whores had two whole chapters on Woodward's interview with Nixon at Leavenworth and Bernstein bringing the sammitches...footnoted and everyt'ing.
Just heard Bernstein a little while ago saying stories about Ford being against the Iraqi war are going to be appearing in newspapers in the coming days....I wonder if Woodward is behind that too!
LOL! I am happy to see you posting.
Happy New Year, FRiend.
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