This page features brief excerpts of stories published by the mainstream
media and, less frequently, blogs, alternative media, and even obviously
biased sources. The excerpts are taken directly from the websites cited in
each source note. Quotation marks are not used.
Source: NYT
Dec 29, 2006
As he helped in recent years arrange the details of his own funeral, Gerald R. Ford reached out to an old adversary: Jimmy Carter, who defeated him for the presidency in 1976.
Mr. Ford asked whether his successor might consider speaking at his funeral and offered, lightheartedly, to do the same for Mr. Carter, depending on who died first.
The invitation was decades in the making, associates of Mr. Ford’s said. And, they said, it was typical for Mr. Ford, who came to his
Source: NYT
Dec 29, 2006
President Gerald R. Ford was never one for second-guessing, but for many years after leaving office in 1977, he carried in his wallet a scrap of a 1915 Supreme Court ruling. A pardon, the excerpt said, “carries an imputation of guilt,” and acceptance of a pardon is “a confession of it.”
Mr. Ford’s decision to pardon Richard M. Nixon for any crimes he might have been charged with because of Watergate is seen by many historians as the central event of his 896-day presidency. It also a
Source: WaPo
Dec 29, 2006
Gerald R. Ford thought globally as a president, but in a salubrious 30-year retirement spent on ski slopes and putting greens, he acted locally, serving on charities, donning sneakers for the first Desert AIDS Walk, speaking to the Boys and Girls Club and leading the annual Fourth of July parade.
Ford's regular-guy lifestyle distinguished him from other former presidents. Richard M. Nixon, who handed the presidency to Ford, wrote books to buff up his reputation. Ford's former advers
Source: WaPo
Dec 29, 2006
One was an acolyte of Charles Manson, the other a suburban mom who dabbled at the fringes of San Francisco's counterculture and served as an FBI informant.
Both still alive and serving prison sentences, they are scarcely footnotes now. But in September 1975 -- just 17 days apart -- Lynette "Squeaky" Fromme and Sara Jane Moore shook the country, already rattled by Watergate and the collapse of South Vietnam, with their attempts to assassinate President Gerald R. Ford.
Source: Bob Woodward in the WaPo
Dec 29, 2006
Months before Richard M. Nixon set a relatively unknown Michigan congressman named Gerald R. Ford on the path to the White House, Nixon turned to Ford, who called himself the embattled president's "only real friend," to get him out of trouble.
During one of the darkest days of the Watergate scandal, Nixon secretly confided in Ford, at the time the House minority leader. He begged for help. He complained about fair-weather friends and swore at perceived rivals in his own pa
Source: BBC
Dec 29, 2006
Britain will settle its World War II debts to the US and Canada when it pays two final instalments before the close of 2006, the UK Treasury has said.The payments of $83.25m (£42.5m) to the US and US$22.7m (£11.6m) to Canada are the last of 50 instalments since 1950.
The amount paid back is nearly double that loaned in 1945 and 1946. "This week we finally honour in full our commitments to the US and Canada for the support they gave us 60 years ago," sa
Source: Guardian
Dec 28, 2006
Picking through centuries-old rubbish, masonry and discarded body parts beneath an abandoned Tuscan church, an Italian historian believes she has solved one of history's great crime mysteries.
For more than four centuries, researchers have puzzled over the fact that Francesco I Medici, the son of the first Grand Duke, Cosimo, died within hours of his wife in October 1587. Legend had it they were poisoned by his brother and successor, a cardinal.
Modern historians have
Source: http://www.peer.org
Dec 28, 2006
Grand Canyon National Park is not permitted to give an official estimate of the geologic age of its principal feature, due to pressure from Bush administration appointees. Despite promising a prompt review of its approval for a book claiming the Grand Canyon was created by Noah's flood rather than by geologic forces, more than three years later no review has ever been done and the book remains on sale at the park, according to documents released today by Public Employees for Environmental Respon
Source: UPI
Dec 28, 2006
An academic and diplomatic review of historic relations between China and Japan will not dilute Japan's record of massacres, China Radio International reports.
The remark was made Thursday in Beijing by Foreign Ministry spokesman Qin Gang, who discussed the conclusion of the first joint historical review between the two countries aimed at narrowing differences.
Qin was asked if the so-called Tokyo Tribunal, or the International Military Tribunal for the Far East, h
Source: Telegraph (UK)
Dec 28, 2006
The Treasury will next month publish a register of every national asset — ranging from Trident nuclear submarines to an offshoot of "Newton's Apple Tree" — in an attempt to identify assets that can be sold to fund government spending.
The National Asset Register is expected to show that the nation's assets, which include offices, land and equipment, total more than £300 billion. City estimates suggest that the true valuation could be as high as £1,000 billion if land value
Source: AP
Dec 28, 2006
Britain launched a virtual tour of Prime Minister Tony Blair's Downing Street office, giving web surfers a glimpse into the lives of the people who work behind the country's most famous front door.
The tour includes images of the Cabinet table, the Grand Staircase adorned with portraits of every prime minister, and the entrance hall, and can be accessed on the prime minister's website -- www.pm.gov.uk <http://ww
Source: Reuters
Dec 28, 2006
BUENOS AIRES - Police searched on Thursday for a man who has disappeared months after testifying he was tortured by a policeman during Argentina's military dictatorship, the second "Dirty War" witness to go missing.
Government officials said President Nestor Kirchner had postponed a planned trip to coordinate police efforts to locate Luis Gerez, a 51-year-old construction worker who vanished on Wednesday, according to family members.
Source: Newhouse News Service
Dec 28, 2006
GRAND RAPIDS, Mich. -- With clean architectural lines and a broad glass front facing the Grand River, the building is a fitting reflection of the man -- open and without pretense.
On a breezy, sun-splashed day in September 1981, the former president stood before 40,000 people on a grassy slope in downtown Grand Rapids and spoke from his heart. Stretched out before him was a crowd that included celebrities, prime ministers and presidents.
"The high point of my life,
Source: WaPo
Dec 28, 2006
Gerald R. Ford's administration passed from the scene relatively quickly in the 1970s, but, like much of the decade's popular culture, it left an imprint that would be felt for years to come. In fact, when George W. Bush arrived at the Oval Office 24 years later, it felt at first as if he were shooting a remake of the Ford White House.
Ford's White House chief of staff, Dick Cheney, was now vice president. Ford's defense secretary, Donald H. Rumsfeld, was again the master of the Pen
Source: WaPo
Dec 28, 2006
Without question, Gerald R. Ford was one of the most athletic presidents in history.
Ford, who died Tuesday night at age 93, loved to take part in sports from his days as a youth in Grand Rapids, Mich., until he occupied the White House and during the many years afterward. He is best known for playing center at the University of Michigan, where he was on the Wolverines' national championship football teams of 1932 and 1933 and was the team's most valuable player in 1934.
Source: WaPo
Dec 28, 2006
The modest two-story colonial in Alexandria has all the trappings of an ordinary home: the pink bathroom, the Magic Chef oven, a couple of fireplaces. But 514 Crown View Dr. also boasts some signs, both subtle and overt, that indicate its unusual status in U.S. history.
Neighbors talk of the steel rods placed underneath the driveway to support the limos. A previous tenant speaks about the countless telephone lines installed in the basement and attic used by the Secret Service.
Source: NYT
Dec 28, 2006
For every impossible problem that official Washington faces, there is a blue-ribbon panel, and for every panel there is a predictable life cycle, which the Iraq Study Group has so far followed to a fault.
First, the unrealistic expectations, fueled by feverish news coverage, including speculation and leaks about just what might be proposed. Next, the report’s grand unveiling, complete with White House photo op, this time featuring President Bush with the co-chairmen, James A. Baker
Source: NYT
Dec 28, 2006
Death is sad, at least in most cases. But the death of a former president has become an almost cheery television event.
It’s been more than 40 years since John F. Kennedy was assassinated. His successors died out of office, relatively quietly and well into old age. The passing of a retired commander in chief perks up the day with a wallop of stately special reports and bittersweet nostalgia, (plaid jackets, “Saturday Night Live,” détente) without undue anxiety or grieving.
Source: NYT
Dec 28, 2006
The body of former President Gerald R. Ford will lie in the Capitol this weekend amid tributes marked by considerably less pageantry than the funeral of former President Ronald Reagan in 2004, Congressional officials said Wednesday.
Services for Mr. Ford, the 38th president, who died late Tuesday, will begin Friday in Palm Desert, Calif., with private prayers for the family at St. Margaret’s Episcopal Church, Gregory D. Willard, a Ford family spokesman, said at a news conference.
Source: Press Release -- The David S. Wyman Institute for Holocaust Studies
Dec 28, 2006
The prosecution and imprisonment of prominent Holocaust-deniers in Europe dealt a serious blow to the Holocaust-denial movement in 2006, according to this year’s annual report on Holocaust-denial activity around the world.
The year-end report, Holocaust Denial: A Global Survey - 2006, is published by The David S. Wyman Institute for Holocaust Studies, which is based in Washington, D.C. The report’s co-authors are Holocaust scholars Dr. Rafael Medoff, director of the Wyman Institute
