Roundup: Talking About History

Bruce Bartlett: Ford’s Lost Legacy

[ Bruce Bartlett is the author of "Impostor: How George W. Bush Bankrupted America and Betrayed the Reagan Legacy." In the 1980's, Mr. Bartlett was the executive director of the Joint Economic Committee of Congress. He later worked in the Reagan White House and in the Treasury Department during the administration of President George H.W. Bush.] With the passing of Gerald Ford, we have lost more than a former president who served the nation honorably in trying times. The Re

Robert Crease: The Internet is affecting not only how scientists communicate, but also how future science historians will have to work

[Robert P Crease is chairman of the Department of Philosophy, State University of New York at Stony Brook and historian at the Brookhaven National Laboratory, e-mail rcrease@notes.cc.sunysb.edu] Until quite recently, letters were the most common way – and often the only way – for scientists to communicate informally with each other. It is not surprising therefore that science historians have long relied on letters as invaluable source

Susan Breitkopf: Lost ... The Looting of Iraq’s Antiquities

The only real comparison is to the surface of the moon. Craters as deep as 16 feet cover multi-acre sites that are remnants of what is widely considered the cradle of civilization. The craggy, arid earth, all but barren of vegetation, lies in mounds alongside the deep pits where thousands of Iraqi antiquities—cuneiform tablets, ancient scrolls and kings commemorated in stone that might give clues to how civilization began—have been ripped from their resting places and sold to nefarious (or

Alicia C. Shepard: How Woodward learned not to rush to judgment

[Ms. Shepard, who teaches journalism at American University, is the author of Woodward and Bernstein: Life in the Shadow of Watergate. Click here for her website.] Many people often attack best-selling author Bob Woodward for not including his opinion or making a judgment in his many books. It has a lot to do with Gerald Ford. Woodward and his partner, Carl Bernstein, played a key role in helping to bring down Pr

Madeleine Bunting: Don't overlook the impact of empire on our identity (UK)

A spate of soul searching is guaranteed by two major anniversaries that loom this year: the abolition of the slave trade in the British empire in 1807, and the Act of Union of England and Scotland in 1707. Both will feed into Britain's nagging sense of self-doubt: who are we? As the debates around integration and multiculturalism show no sign of flagging, both anniversaries will be mined for their contemporary relevance. Add the imminent arrival of a Scot as prime minister - and one who has inve

Eric Mueller: The Disgraces of Privatized Memory

[Eric Muller, UNC Law School professor.] The growing privatization of historical sites, described in this NYTimes article, is a troublesome trend.History in private hands can be a perilous thing. Consider

Christopher Meyer: Farewell to Britain’s US mortage from hell

At midnight tonight the Bank of England will transfer $83m (£42.4m) to the US Federal Reserve. This will be a historic moment: the last repayment of the loan that the United States made to Britain in 1946 and the final chapter in the story of Britain’s alliance with America in the second world war. The negotiation of the loan is a tale of high drama. When I got involved in making a documentary about it I found myself, a former diplomat and historian, immersed in a narrative of endl

Michael Barone: Jerry Ford in History

Gerald Ford, who died last week at age 93, lived longer than any other president and survived after leaving office longer than any other president but Herbert Hoover. So we've had time to reflect on where he and his presidency stand in history. As commentators have been reminding us, Ford healed the wounds of Watergate and provided steady leadership in difficult times. But there is more to be said. Ford came to office when the postwar consensus on foreign and economic policy was in

Stephen Zunes: Reasons to Like Ike

[Stephen Zunes is the Foreign Policy In Focus Middle East editor (www.fpif.org). He is a professor of Politics at the University of San Francisco and the author of Tinderbox: U.S. Middle East Policy and the Roots of Terrorism (Common Courage Press, 2003).] The fiftieth anniversary of the Suez Crisis came and went this past November without much notice. That’s too bad because the Bush administration could learn a lot from the crisis, which ensued wh

Jeffrey Toobin: Gerald Ford’s Affirmative Action

[Jeffrey Toobin, a staff writer at The New Yorker and legal analyst for CNN, is the author of the forthcoming “The Nine: Inside the Secret World of the Supreme Court.”] GERALD R. FORD kept his distance from political controversy after leaving office, but he retained a special interest in the workings of his alma mater. In 1999, the 86-year-old former varsity football star decided to make a public stand in support of affirmative action at the University of Michigan. He w

Quang X. Pham: Ford's Finest Legacy

[Quang X. Pham, who was born in Saigon, served as a Marine pilot in the Persian Gulf War. He is a businessman and the author of "A Sense of Duty: My Father, My American Journey."] "Today, America can regain the sense of pride that existed before Vietnam. But it cannot be achieved by refighting a war that is finished as far as America is concerned. . . . [T]hese events, tragic as they are, portend neither the end of the world nor of America's leadership in the world.&q

Christopher Hitchens: Our Short National Nightmare

One expects a certain amount of piety and hypocrisy when retired statesmen give up the ghost, but this doesn't excuse the astonishing number of omissions and misstatements that have characterized the sickly national farewell to Gerald Ford. One could graze for hours on the great slopes of the massive obituaries and never guess that during his mercifully brief occupation of the White House, this president had: Disgraced the United States in Iraq and inaugurated a long period of calam

Mark Grimsley: The Future of Military History ... Beyond the Culture of Complaint

On September 26, 2006, National Review Online published an op/ed piece by John J. Miller entitled, “Sounding Taps: Why Military History is Being Retired.” It drew a picture of the field of military history having been hounded almost out of the academy by “tenured radicals.” Although highly tendentious in its portrayal, it drew strength from juicy quotes by a number of military historians, many of them quite distinguished, in support of its basic contention. In the short run, the art

Stanley Kutler: Controversy over Nixon pardon lives on

[Stanley I. Kutler is the author of "The Wars of Watergate."] In death, President Gerald Ford's pardon of the disgraced Richard Nixon in 1974 continues to generate misgivings and criticism. Nixon had resigned in August in the wake of the two-year-old Watergate scandal, which had revealed his abuses of power and his obstruction of justice. The Los Angeles Times observed then that "the pardon was a mistake, inconsistent with the fundamental principle that e

Timothy Noah: Washington's Jones for Gerald Ford

During the 25 years that I've lived in Washington, I have never once heard a negative word spoken here about former President Gerald Ford, who died at 93 on Dec. 26. Within the narrow confines of Permanent Washington—the journalists, lobbyists, and congressional lifers who are the city's avatars of centrism and continuity—Ford is considered the beau idéal of American leadership. "By the time he finished his short tenure, he had put together one of the most talented administrations, at least

Christopher Bates: Will Vindication Elude Ford?

[Christopher Bates is a history instructor at Cal Poly Pomona and a writer for the History News Service.] "History will vindicate me!" It is the rallying cry of politicians  worldwide who are unpopular, or under attack, or scandal-ridden.  Sadly for former President Gerald Ford, who died Tuesday evening, his well-deserved vindication will probably never come. Thrust into a difficult situation -- one he handled with aplomb --

Melvin R. Laird: The Ford presidency was a happy accident for America

[Mr. Laird served with Jerry Ford in Congress and later was Nixon's secretary of defense.] ... He was our Accidental President -- never elected by the voters to represent anything but his congressional district, which included Grand Rapids, Mich. It was a happy accident for America, and in many ways it was no accident. It was years in the making and required hard work, planning and good fortune. Jerry often told me how fortunate he had been, beginning when he was only two weeks old

WSJ Editorial: History dealt Ford a weak hand; he played it well

The abiding cliché about Gerald Ford--who died Tuesday at age 93--is that he was a decent man who steadied the country but held the White House too briefly to leave a major imprint. We've always thought that view of his Presidency is too diminishing, not least because he led the nation at a dangerous time and resisted political furies that could have done the U.S. far more harm. "America's Suicide Attempt" is how the historian Paul Johnson describes the 1970s. And it is im

Barry Werth: On Ford's Pardon of Nixon

[Barry Werth is the author of “31 Days: The Crisis that Gave Us the Government We Have Today.”] AMERICA got its first real impression of Gerald Ford on the steamy August morning 33 years ago when he took office as president, and most people instantly liked what they saw. Mr. Ford stood in the driveway of his suburban split-level house, hours before assuming a post he never sought and hoped to avoid having to fill. One of the questions he took was about Harry Truman’s comment when he

Robert Drury and Tom Clavin: How Lieutenant Ford Saved His Ship

[Robert Drury and Tom Clavin are the authors of the forthcoming “Halsey’s Typhoon: The True Story of a Fighting Admiral, an Epic Storm and an Untold Rescue.”] FOR Americans under a certain age, Gerald Ford is best remembered for his contribution to Bartlett’s — “Our long national nightmare is over” — or, more likely, for the comedian Chevy Chase’s stumbling, bumbling impersonations of him on “Saturday Night Live.” But there’s a different label we can attach to this former president,