Diplomat Jim Patterson at International Student House Global Leadership Awards Gala 2014

Diplomat Jim Patterson with Secretary of Defense Chuck Hagel at the Great Hall of International Student House (ISH) DuPont Circle, Washington , DC. Oct. 16, 2014.  The event was ISH's Global Leadership Awards. Defense and security issues aside, we talked about Nebraska politics. During the Reagan administration, I was often sent to farm states to discuss farm and foreign policy. One of my destinations was Grand Island, Nebraska, for Husker Harvest Days. Hagel told me his grandmother lived in Grand island for 50 years. "As a politician in Nebraska," Hagel said, "I never missed attending Husker Harvest Days." 

Hagel's "job" at the event was to introduce Vice President Joe Biden. Hagel and wife, Lilibet, were Honorary Chairs of the event. Hagel, a former GOP senator, was a controversial nominee for Secretary of Defense because he was slow to "evolve" on LGBT issues. Log Cabin Republicans spent considerable resources to convince Senators not to confirm him for SecDef. Others were critical of him for perceived anti-Israeli views. He has largely avoided controversy as SecDef and is seen as an "outsider" of the John Kerry-Susan Rice-Obama "brain" trust.

Hagel served Nebraska in the US Senate from 1996-2008 and he served on the Foreign Relations Committee. He is a Vietnam vet and a double Purple Heart recipient. He supported fellow Vietnam vet Arizona Senator John McCain for the GOP presidential nomination in 2000. When George W. Bush was nominated and elected, Hagel was a critic of Bush's claim Iraq had weapons of mass destruction.

Vice President Joe Biden who spoke of his long friendship with Senator Richard Lugar on the Senate Committee on Foreign Relations.  Vice President Biden said there were "not enough Dick Lugars [in the Senate] to  face our global challenges." (Jim Note: I applauded and the audience joined in.)

Concerning America's changing demographics, Biden said being America is a value set based on the what we hold as self evident life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness. He noted that many of today's world crises are about ethnicity, religion, and other life circumstances. Biden called Lugar a global citizen and an exceptionally intelligent man and a man of simple truths. 

Biden credited Lugar and former Democratic Georgia Senator Sam Nunn with eliminating 7,6000 nuclear weapons in the former Soviet Union, which may have prevented a nuclear war between Ukraine and Russia during their 2013/14 conflict. The Vice president said Lugar's contributions across the board on food security, foreign policy will reverberate for generations. He urged all to continue to engaged in global citizenship. He told the audience that when they stand next to Dick Lugar they will never stand next to a man of greater character. Biden read a congratulatory letter to Lugar from President Barack Obama.

Of Irish descent, Biden, a native of Scranton, PA who served 36 years as a US Senator from Delaware, looked at Lugar and quoted William Butler Yeats, "Think where man's glory most begins and ends, and say my glory was I had such friends." 

Diplomat Jim Patterson with former US Senator Richard Lugar, Republican-Indiana, recipient of the Global Leadership Award from ISH for "advancing international dialogue, intercultural exchanges, and peaceful global citizenship."  

Lugar represented Indiana in the U.S. Senate from 1977-2013. During this time, he served as Chairman of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee from 1985-87, and from 2003-2007. From 2007 until his retirement in 2013, Senator Lugar was the Ranking Member of the Committee. Additionally, he twice served as Chairman of the Senate Committee on Agriculture, Nutrition and Forestry. Prior to his election to the Senate, he was mayor of Indianapolis from 1968-1976. (Patterson lived in Indianapolis from 1982-84 and worked for the State of Indiana and held an elected Lawrence Township position with the Marion County Republican Party.) 

Senator Lugar is respected globally as an international statesman. He has been an exceptional leader in efforts to reduce  the threat of nuclear, chemical and biological weapons. In 1991, he forged a bipartisan partnership with then Senator Sam Nunn, D-Georgia) to destroy these weapons of mass destruction in the former Soviet Union. To date, the Nunn-Lugar program has deactivated more than 7,600 nuclear warheads that were once aimed at the United States.

   

After leaving the Senate, Senator Lugar created the Lugar Institute, a nonprofit organization that focuses on food and energy security, the nonproliferation of weapons of mass destruction, and effective bipartisan government. He also serves as a Senior Transatlantic Fellow at the German Marshall Fund. 

In his remarks, Lugar mentioned graduating Oxford, serving in the Navy and being Mayor of Indianapolis. He spoke of his pride in working on a bipartisan basis with his Senate colleagues and his peaceful constructive engagement with world leaders. He mentioned his Lugar Center is based in Washington DC. He said President Obama is a global leader. Being a global citizen, Lugar said, means a commitment to public service in the world, water, food security, fuel, governance, and human rights. He said leaders must listen and learn together whether they seek elected or appointed office. Those who reject ideas, with the mindset and character of "my way or the highway"will create disaster time and gain. (Jim Note: I led the applause on this.) 

Lugar said when he first when abroad he marveled at how the big the world is and how extraordinary the problems were. It is still true and he said he was happy to see so many in the room looking forward to meeting global challenges.

 Diplomat Jim Patterson with Lt. General Brent Scowcroft, a partner of the ISH Global Leadership Gala. Scowcroft served as National Security Adviser to Presidents Gerald R. Ford and George H. W. Bush. Scowcroft is a prolific author and among his books is A World Transformed, co-authored with Bush, received wide acclaim upon publication in 1999. The New York Times Book Review called it, "The most important book yet written about the end of the Cold War."  Eugene V. Rostow, in the Wall Street Journal, called it "Among the finest expositions of modern American foreign policy. . . . An excellent book."  Scowcroft is the subject of a new January 2015 book.

Reading a few pages from Time and Chance (University of Michigan, 1998) in the Borwick Room, International Student House. Author "James Cannon, formerly national affairs editor at Newsweek and Ford's domestic policy adviser, has written a superbly provocative and arresting biography that traces Ford's life from his July 4, 1913, birth in Omaha, Nebraska, to his September 8,1974, decision to pardon Nixon of the Watergate conspiracy." --Washington Post Book World.

The ISH bestowed its Global Citizen Award to the family of family of former Lebanese Prime Minister Rafic Hariri, epresented by son Bahaa Hariri. The Hariri family has acheived international prominence in the fields of statesmanship, business and philanthropy.

The ISH Distinguished Alumni Award went to Abraham Akoi, an ISH resident, named Policy and management Officer in the Ministry of Finance and Economic Development of South Sudan. His Excellency The Ambassador of Italy and Mrs. Claudio Bisogniero served as Diplomat Chairs for the event.

The International Student House of Washington DC began 78 years ago as an inspiration of the American Friends Service Committee (Quakers) seeking greater peace though community among young people from across the globe. ISH has had over 10,000 residents, including me, since its founding.   

Diplomat Jim Patterson at DACOR Annual Meeting 2014

This posting is still in editing.

Diplomat Jim Patterson on "Last Days of Vietnam"

The Last Days of Vietnam

Film Documentary 2014

A nail bitter of a documentary, about the fall of Saigon 40 years ago. President Richard Nixon and Dr. Henry Kissinger successfully negotiated the Paris Peace Accords in 1973 to find peace with honor, an end to the conflict, and withdrawal of US troops. The North Vietnamese agreed to the accords because Nixon was a tough negotiator whom they feared.

Of the Paris Peace Accord, Dr. Kissinger, now 91 with a new book “World Order,” recalls on film: “We who made the agreement thought it would be the beginning, not of peace in the American sense, but the beginning of a period of coexistence which might evolve, as it did in Korea, into two states.”

In August 1974, when Nixon resigned for Watergate crimes and Gerald R. Ford became president, the North Vietnamese saw it as their opportunity to invade South Vietnam, force Americans out and control the country. The North’s full scale military invasion began in early 1975. The communists had no mercy for the South Vietnamese and executed thousands.

Much of the exciting news footage in this film has been widely available in the public domain for years. It is expertly and excitingly edited to tell the story of a major human effort to save as many South Vietnamese as possible as Saigon fell.

The dramatic news footage of the communist takeover of South Vietnam is supplemented with various surviving ground personnel speaking of their efforts to evacuate Americans, and the thousands of South Vietnamese who fought with US troops, worked for US contractors and the US embassy, as well as American dependents.

At one point, Dick Armitage, a Navy officer and, alter, an official in the George W. Bush administration, gave orders without permission from his superiors. “I figured it was better to beg forgiveness later than to seek permission,” he said of saving South Vietnamese lives.

The last US Ambassador to South Vietnam, Graham Martin, who succeeded Ellsworth Bunker in the position, was a hawk from North Carolina who held the unrealistic belief Saigon could be successfully defended from the massive invasion of North Vietnamese communists. Martin’s staffers and military personnel  imitated an early secret evacuation of  some South Vietnamese without Martin’s or Washington’s knowledge.

As reality sank in, the US embassy was opened to as many South Vietnamese as could gain access to the embassy compound. The mad rush of South Vietnamese for the safety of the embassy caused me an unpleasant flashback to Washington DC on the morning of September 11, 2001. When we leaned Washington was under attack from Middle Eastern terrorists, government agencies were ordered closed and personnel ordered home. Chaos ensued.

I saw people running frantically from the White House and from Capitol Hill offices. No one knew for sure what the next target would be. The faces of Americans were faces of fear and desperation to find no taxis and many subway stations closed. In the documentary, the location is Saigon 1974 but the fear and desperation on the faces of the South Vietnamese was the same as I saw in Washington on September 11.

Audiences will see many dramatic scenes in this film as it reaches its end. In another scene, a South Vietnamese Navy official was ordered by Americans to begin evacuation of and move all  operational ships out to sea. The old man remembers such an order as “beyond my position.” He said he ignored military rules and followed his heart.

The scene of a South Vietnamese military vessel being denied entry to post in the Philippines is touching. The South Vietnamese flag is lowered and replaced with an American flag so the vessel could safely dock. The scene is startlingly realistic as the South Vietnamese aboard sang their national anthem as their flag came down at the same time their country ceased to exist.

Scenes from Washington, depict intense Oval Office photographs of President Ford, Vice President Nelson Rockefeller and Dr. Henry Kissinger as events in South Vietnam came to a close. Ford asked Congress for $722 million as a last resort to help evacuees. Congress turned its back on South Vietnam and refused any more money for what they saw as a lost cause.

The US war in Vietnam, which began in 1950 under President Dwight Eisenhower and escalated under Kennedy, Johnson, and Nixon, came to an end under President Ford, who sought to leave the country with as little extra bloodshed as possible.

Evacuation and repatriation of South Vietnamese to America was also a credit to Mr. Ford’s leadership and human compassion. Here are some passages from various books on the challenges Vietnam posed in the 1970s. 

“The domestic disputes [between North and South Vietnam] that had characterized the war continued into the postwar period, and the Watergate crisis prevented enforcement of the argument. The controversy began with a debate over whether the United states had the right to defend an agreement for which over 55,000 Americans had died. And then, within six months, Congress in June 1973 prohibited any U.S. military action or military deployment in Indochina. It was the first time that the United States had deprived itself of the ability to enforce an agreement [Paris Peace Accords] for which American forces had fought and died,” Dir. Kissinger wrote in “Crisis” The Anatomy of Two Major Foreign Policy Crises.

James Cannon, in 2013’s “Gerald R. Ford: An Honorable Life,” wrote, “To his great credit, he (Ford) ended the Vietnam War, which three Presidents before him had mismanaged. It was a humiliating ending to the war, but Congress, having cut off money for Vietnam, gave Ford no choice. The withdrawal he managed well, pulling out the last U.S. forces, saving American lives, and rescuing thousands of Vietnamese who had supported the American effort.”

Dr. Yanek Mieczkowski in his 2005 book “Gerald Ford and the Challenges of the 1970s,”  wrote, “On April 23, he [Ford] addressed students at Tulane University and declare, ‘Today, America can regain a sense of pride that existed before Vietnam. But it cannot be achieved by re-fighting a war that is finished as far as the American people are concerned.’”

“The speech was a milestone in contemporary American history. Ford did something no America president had been able to for thirty years: He spoke of the Indochina war in the past tense,” wrote  Ron Nessen, press secretary to President Ford.

In sum, “Last Days in Vietnam”  contains voices of old soldiers who aided humanity on a large scale in a chaotic time. Also, voices of South Vietnamese happy to have made better lives for themselves in America. Also, the voices of children who speak proudly of their lost parents efforts to get to safety in America. Instead of fighting a lost cause to the end, in the last days US personnel in South Vietnam realized their job was to save lives rather than continue to kill. 

Jim Patterson
JEPDiplomat@gmail.com

Diplomat Jim Patterson and Global Strategist Ralph Buultjens at New York University

Diplomat Jim Patterson with Dr. Ralph Buultjens at New York University, September 2014

Dr. Buultjens, spoke on World Politics: Hot and Cold Wars,  and examined current events in order to understand today in "the longer flow of history." He noted we are in a rare historical moment of process reorientation. The current global conflicts must be seen as a balance of power context. He noted wealth and innovation have determined power among nations.
He said resentments over past human rights abuses have emboldened violent reaction from a number of world players, including Islamic State terrorists.  "The conquest of the planet," he said, "has been by whites." 84 percent of the world was white by World War I. 

 Gradually, he said, resentment grew against America due to its powerful economy, and its political and technical leadership  of the world. The lecture was given on the 13th anniversary of the September 11 2001 attack on the World Trade Center and the Pentagon.
 For the first time in 500 years, Buultjens said, the West's political strength is challenged  by an Islamic threat. He also noted the huge non-Western population in the West and mentioned jihadists may be among us. 

The situation in the Ukraine is a fight between the US and Russia, he said. "It is an effort to rearrange the power structure of the world."  This is an intense long term process with uncertainty and tensions about superpower resentment.

 Current global affairs are great disturbances with layers of complexity, complications and difficulties, he said. Things are oscillating with neither good/bad times lasting  long. He sagely stated one overriding global reality: Big fish eat little fish.

 Dr. Buultjens sees peacekeeping institutions as largely ineffective given the number of invasions in the world. He did not mention the United Nations. President Obama, he noted, has declared war on jihadism.

 At stake today is global order, a stable Middle East, the U.S. Empire, and the security of Israel. In all cases, the stakes are high, he said. 

 History is not taking place in Latin America, Africa or India but in four power centers that will determine the future of world politics in the 21st century.  

 The Middle East is collapsing, he said, due to invasions, terrorists, Arab Springs, Muslim disagreements, the ongoing and escalating Israeli/Palestinian conflict, and civil wars in Syria and Libya. These conflicts are affecting the US policy making, he said.
(Jim Note: They have rendered the US helpless.) In sum, the Persian Gulf is a snake pit, Buultjens said. The security of Israel and the threat of export of jihad ism to the US are major concerns.

 Regarding the  Israeli and Gaza conflict, the Arab neighbors are quiet. He said "99 percent of the noise" comes only from the US. 

A resolution of the Palestinian conflict would be in Israel's benefit, he feels. But the Israelis are not going to be pushed around by the Palestinians or Palestinian supporters in the US or Europe, he cautioned.
Regarding the export of jihadism to the US, Buultjens said the US cannot fight ISIS alone and needs an anti-ISIS coalition such as Britain, France, Australia, all Western allies and Saudi Arabia. No Islamic state is committed against ISIS, therefore he said, the US can't do much as it will be seen as on anti-Islamic crusade.  

 Regarding Iraq, "there we go again," he joked, pondering if we "will have to destroy it to save it." He said ISIS is less a threat, at 30,000 "troops," than was al-Qaeda.

 In Iraq the Iraqi army ran from ISIS "troops" and, he noted, the US trained the Iraqi army. He sees a growth of ISIS in the immediate future. 

He sees a growing global nuclear proliferation in North Korea and Iran. He suggested an anti-nuclear coalition is more important than anti-ISIS coalition.

He thinks the US cannot effectively, nor economically, be policeman of the world.

He advises Obama to seriously readdress Russia "Czar" Putin. Buultjens said Putin thinks he is a czar. He declared, "PUTIN IS NOT A NICE MAN."

China's ten years of growth have been phenomenal. He said they've played off the politics of others and noted they are a net gainer in globalization with over 1 million Chinese in Africa and investment across the US. AND, he stressed, China is a friend of Israel. He declared, "China is the Superman of the 21st century."

China's future, he said, depends on 3 critical questions.

1. Can China control its freedom movement. China can't be a little bit free just like a woman can't be a little bit pregnant. Will China conform or will it be more restrictive and give the world more Tiananmen Square protests like in 1989. 
 2. China wants a bigger place in the global economy and has the potential to upset financial markets with its huge cash reserves.
3. Can China control its heartland. Border unrest could destabilize the country. US practices soft containment of China and relations need better diplomatic management. 

Managing US foreign policy today is a terrible job, the professor said. 

He pondered, "Is the US a great nation in decline?" If Greece and Rome fell, who is immune, he asked. 

In the US he sees growing discontent in society and politics. Government is unpopular with the people, he said, and they want to know why should the US be nation-building with so many problems at home, including underfunded infrastructure, services, etc. He noted foreign nationals were far better educated than US workers. 

No nation is in better position to lead the world than the US, he said. "We have the innovative minds, our energy situation has vastly improved, our population mix is the most favorable in the world, nations like to ally with the US, and the US is more open to social change than elsewhere in the world. 



Voting, Buultjens said, should be easier. "A higher voter turnout in 2000 would have elected Al Gore not George W. Bush. What a difference that would have made in world politics."

"We are at an extraordinary moment in world affairs. The US, Russia, China will impact the world for decades to come.

"In the stream of history there is crap and champagne," he said. In other words, good times and bad times are a constant.  

The lecture lasted one hour. No Q&A. Estimated audience 800.

Bio Note: Ralph Buultjens is a professor at New York University, and the former Nehru Professor/Professorial Fellow at the University of Cambridge.  He was awarded the Toynbee Prize for Social Sciences in 1984.Selected Publications:
Conceptualizing Global History (with Bruce Mazlish, 2004) 
The Destiny of freedom: Political Legacies of the Twentieth Century (Louis Nizer lecture on public policy, 1999)
Politics and History: Lessons for Today (1986) 
The Secret Life of Karl Marx (1985)

Jim Note: I enjoyed reading Conceptualizing Global History edited by Buultjens which I read while studying at Georgetown. I agreed with his arguments that historical awareness was vitally needed as we move into a global era. The book was dedicated to global history to inform and direct policy.

Rational for a historical approach to policy is based on a series of developments including global environmental problems (climate change), nuclear threats, multinational trade and economic activity, and rapid technological advances. The new millennium will bring new challenges and a sophisticated global history methodologically to contemporary challenges can benefit policymakers and society.

Diplomat Jim Patterson at the Gerald R. Ford Presidential Museum

July 2014

I made my first visit to the Gerald R. Ford Presidential Museum in Grand Rapids, Michigan, to celebrate President Ford’s birthday, July 14. (The Ford Presidential Library is in Ann Arbor.) I toured the magnificent Museum and enjoyed the historical exhibits of Mr. Ford’s administration from August 9, 1974, to January 20, 1977.

Mr. Ford’s statue outside the museum is most impressive. On the plinth are words from former House Speaker Tip O’Neill, “ God has been good to America especially during difficult times. At the time of the Civil War, he gave us Abraham Lincoln. And at the time of Watergate, he gave us Gerald Ford – the right man at the right time who was able to put our nation back together again.”

Former Ford administration Commerce Department official James A. Baker II, also the 61^st Secretary of State, was keynote speaker for the William E. Simon Lecture in Grand Rapids on July 14, 2014. Simon, an advocate of free trade, and liberalization of trade and investment, served as Treasury secretary for President.

In opening remarks, Baker said Ford “served his fellow Americans with dignity.” President Gerald Ford had “a true moral compass,” Baker said. He noted Ford was Pacific war hero with the intellect of a Yale Law graduate.  “Gerald  Ford was “a beautiful human being.”

Ford’s most exemplary traits, Baker said, included selflessness, bipartisanship, and perseverance in the face of adversity.  “Compromise is the oil that makes government go,” he recalled Ford saying. He said Ford had no political enemies. He said former First Lady Betty Ford turned Her “trials into triumphs.” Baker said Ford left a “sizable footprint in U.S. history.”

Among current challenges facing our country, Baker cited developing regional stability in the Middle East. Obama needs to have a multilateral strategy for Iraq and Syria to end the terror. He said the Islamist State controls much of both countries and is a danger to the region and to the world.

Baker called Transpacific Trade Partnership was critical and Obama needed to provide the political leadership to get the trade agreement settled via fast-track authority where Senate debate would be limited to 20 hours with no changes to the agreement. 

President Obama needs to correct a squishy foreign policy, Baked said. Just back from a State Funeral in the former Soviet Republic of Georgia, Baker said Russian control of Crimea and intervention in Ukraine has many other countries worried about a growing war and greater economic and political destabilization. He said economic sanctions need to tougher. He said U.S. Army and Naval resources needed to be increased in Poland as a deterrent to broader Russian expansion.

Climate change is another pressing challenge Baker said, stressing it is a global challenge. He said he supports US reduction in carbon emissions but China and India must do the same. President Obama’s plan, Baker suggested, could damage our economic recovery. The US effort to address climate change, he said, must be in conjunction with other countries to be successful.

Other issues Baker mentioned were immigration reform, education reforms, and the political polarization that has paralyzed Washington. He said President Obama needed to provide leadership to revive bipartisanship.

Baker ended by calling President Ford an “honest, ethical and talented public servant” and a “true American patriot who always put our country’s interest before his own.”

During Q&A, Baker said he served as Presidential Chief of Staff longer than anyone in history and “I didn't go to jail.” The Chief’s job is to “catch the javelins intended for the old man,” he laughed.

 Diplomat Jim Patterson greeting a colleague at Amway Grand Hotel, Grand Rapids, MI.

Ford Ballroom, Amway Grand Hotel, Grand Rapids

 Diplomat Jim Patterson with President Gerald R. Ford atthe Ford Museum, Grand Rapids, July 14, 2014

Honorable Thomas P. "Tip" O'Neill statement on the Ford statue

Resting place for President and Mrs. Gerald R. Ford, Ford Museum, Grand Rapids, MI.

Diplomat Jim Patterson with the Gerald R. Ford US Postage Stamp

 Diplomat Jim Patterson's Fried of Ford Membership Card

 President Gerald R. Ford receiving the John F. Kennedy Profile in Courage Award, 2001, with Senator Edward Kennedy and JFK daughter Caroline Kennedy.

President Gerald R. Ford receiving the Presidential Medal of Freedom from President and Mrs, Clinton

Diplomat Jim Patterson after worship at the Ford family parish, Grace Episcopal Church, Grand Rapids, MI, July 2014. This is a beautiful church with great study rooms and social areas.

 Diplomat Jim Patterson at the Ford Presidential Museum, July 2014

Diplomat Jim Patterson at sign commemorating the 40th anniversary of President Ford's inaugural, August 9, 1074.

Ways to Honor President and Mrs. Gerald R. Ford

1.      Visit the Ford Museum in Grand Rapids and Library in Ann Arbor.

2.      Support the Gerald R. Ford Foundation.

3.      Make a donation to the Ford family church, Grace Episcopal Church, in Grand Rapids.

4.      Ask the Postmaster General to re-issue the Ford stamp as a Forever stamp.

5.      Thank the people at the Ford Museum and Library for all they do for the Ford family

6.      Read books on Mr. Ford’s presidency, Gerald Ford and the Challenges of the 1970s is a great book!

7.      Attend the annual Ford Journalism Award at the National Press Club in Washington DC. Awards are for national Defense and White House reporting.

8.      Direct convention business to Grand Rapids.

9.      Tell the Republican National Committee in Washington to prominently place Mr. Ford’s portrait in the building or in the Capitol Hill Club.

President Gerald R. Ford was Healer in Chief

James Patterson, August 9, 2005

On August 9, 1974, when Vice President Gerald R. Ford assumed the Presidency under terms of the 25^th Amendment to the U.S. Constitution, I was visiting with an economics professor at Auburn University. We listened to the historic news on his radio. It was a time of great national concern.

I listened as President Ford addressed the nation. “Our long national nightmare is over,” he said referring to the Watergate crimes of President Richard Nixon. 

President Ford spoke with a sincerity that appealed to me. I liked his long international and foreign policy experience. I also liked that he asked Dr. Henry Kissinger to remain at State and continue to open diplomatic channels to Beijing and Moscow.

Soon after Mr. Ford’s “inaugural” address, I joined Auburn University Young Republicans, Mr. Ford inherited a troubled economy and a country in near political chaos. I wanted to help him.  It can’t be said I joined the party at a political high point in Alabama.

At that time, Alabama’s Republican Party was virtually non-existent.  In contrast, today Alabama’s Democratic Party is virtually non-existent! The same phenomenon has occurred all across the South. I’d like to say I had the wisdom to foresee a major political re-alignment in the region. I didn’t know that would happen. Instead, I liked Ford and I wanted to help him.

My enthusiasm and position in the Young Republicans led me to meetings with Alabama Republican Party officials in Birmingham and Montgomery. In 1976, I was selected as a member of a national youth group called The Presidentials. In total, there were over 200 hundred of us.

As a member of The Presidentials, I worked for the Ford Presidential campaign in Georgia, Alabama and Mississippi. Later, I traveled to Kansas City, where I had a leadership role with The Presidentials. It was my first national convention. What a convention it was!

Neither President Ford nor California Governor Ronald Reagan had the presidential nomination sewn up going into the convention. As a result, each day was tense. Still, celebrities Cary Grant, Gordon MacRae, Sonny Bono, Pat Boone, Tony Orlando and Edgar Bergen were among the happy conventioneers and guests.

Vice President Nelson Rockefeller, a longtime personal and political hero, was head of the New York delegation for President Ford. He sat at a table with the New York delegates on the convention floor.

The Vice President had a direct telephone line to President Ford. One day, an angry Reagan delegate from Texas came to Rockefeller’s table and instigated a confrontation. The Reagan delegate jerked Rockefeller’s telephone from its connection. For a short time that tense day, the Vice President had no direct connection with President Ford. What if?

After long nights of hard politicking, President Ford secured the presidential nomination. The Presidentials were on the convention floor as President  Ford gave his acceptance speech. Ronald and Nancy Reagan, sitting high in the rafters of Kemper Area, responded to President Ford’s wave to come and share the moment. Reagan gave a crowd pleasing short speech.

Despite their political disagreements, President Ford and Governor Reagan left eh convention as friends. I learned a valuable lesson from the Ford-Reagan example: Discuss your differences, settle them, and walk away friends. I have used that approach as a diplomat, economist and politician.

After the convention, members of  the Presidentials returned to their home states and campaigned for the Ford/Dole ticket. (Kansas GOP Senator Bob Dole was the 1976 vice presidential candidate.)  The vote was close, but, in the end, Georgia Governor Jimmy Carter was elected president.

As Mr. Ford prepared to leave office, the Wall Street Journal opined the country needed more than a strong leader in office after the Nixon resignation over Watergate crimes. “What the country needed this time was a healer, and that is what it got in Gerald Ford.”

In his inaugural speech, President Carter thanked President Ford “for all he has done to heal our land.” President Ford would later title his presidential memoir “A Time to Heal.” I have an autographed copy of it in my library.

In 1999, President Ford received the Congressional Gold Medal. President Bill Clinton awarded Mr. Ford the Presidential Medal of Freedom that same year. President and Mrs, Ford have enjoyed active retirement years together in California. I am a longtime member of the Gerald R. Ford Foundation.

Gerald R. Ford, a profile in courage

Jim Patterson, May 28, 2001

The John F. Kennedy Library Foundation in Boston bestowed the Profile in Courage Award to President Gerald R. Ford, the 38^th President of the United States.

As I read about the award to Mr. Ford, I recalled my work as a Young Republican at Auburn University during the Ford administration. Those were difficult days for us Republicans. Still, they were the best days of my young life in politics.

Ford’s ascendancy to the presidency was filled with high drama. The resignation of Vice President Spiro Agnew for taking “kickbacks” while Governor of Maryland opened the political door for Michigan US. Representative and House Minority leader Gerald R. Ford, of Grand Rapids, to become Vice President.

On August 9, 1974, President Richard M. Nixon resigned due to Watergate crimes and Ford became President of the United States. Ford is our only Constitutionally appointed president.

Ford moved quickly to nominate former New York Governor Nelson Rockefeller as Vice President. Republicans across the country were disheartened with Nixon’s resignation.

Democrats, in control of Congress, used the Watergate scandal against Republicans from maine to California. The 1974 mid-term election produced a significant number of new Democrats, the so-called Watergate class of legislators.

Yes, things looked horrible for Republicans. At Auburn, our monthly Young Republican meetings consisted of only office holders. New member recruitment was a dream. Democrats abounded on campus. I served as state committeeman and represented our group at the state convention, which was also disheartened by Watergate.

Ronald Reagan supporters, including Judge Guy Hunt, who was later elected Alabama governor, enlivened the state party convention. When it seemed things couldn’t get any worse, the media began to focus on the new Ford administration.  Fortunately, many of President Nixon’s top hands remained to serve Mr. Ford, thus avoiding partisan political battles over new nominees on Capitol Hill.

Although Mr. Nixon resigned in 1974, Democrats intended to pursue him legally for Watergate crimes. They were eager to jail Nixon.

Ford realized his job was to move the Nation forward and get past Nixon and Watergate. On a Sunday morning in September 1974, Ford, on national television, took a controversial move and issued “a full, complete, and absolute pardon to President Richard M. Nixon for any and all offenses against the United States of America.”

At once, Democrats began to scream about a “pardon deal” bewtsween Ford nd Nixon. Mr. Ford testified to Congress there was no such deal and his only concern was for the country and he felt the pardon was needed.

In granting the pardon, Mr. Ford demonstrated great political courage and true political grit necessary to bring closure to the whole Watergate scandal.

Certainly, Ford knew the pardon would not be politically popular and he was right. Vicious political attacks from Democrats began the day of the pardon. Democratic Senator Edward M. Kennedy campaigning in California, at the time, called the pardon “the culmination of the Watergate cover up. Instead of turning away from Watergate and instead of building on the early record of [his] first weeks in office, instead of setting new standards of respect for the presidency, the premature pardon of the former president has sown new doubts.”

Contrary to Kennedy’s charge, Ford did bring respect and honor to the presidency. Due to his popularity and honesty, Mr. Ford sought to become an elected president in 1976. After a bruising primary battle with former California Governor Ronald Reagan, Ford narrowly lost the general election to former Georgia Governor Jimmy Carter, himself a one-term president thanks to Reagan.

History and even some Democrats have looked kindly on Mr. Ford’s political courage in pardoning Nixon. Thus, the Profile in Courage Award from the Kennedy Foundation. Today, Senator Edward Kennedy speaks favorably of Mr. Ford. According to the Boston Globe, Senator Kennedy said, “Now we clearly recognize Ford put the needs of the country ahead of his own. We now know it took great political courage make that pardon. President Ford recognized we had to return to the nation’s business, and pursuing Richard Nixon through the courts would have diverted the country’s interest.”

A New York high school student nominated Ford, now 87, for the Profile in Courage Award and the Kennedy family agreed Ford had shown enormous courage by granting Nixon the pardon.

Ford had a challenging presidency including raging inflation, the fall of Saigon, the capture of the Mayaguez, a summit with Soviet leader Leonid Brezhnev at Vladivostok, and a controversial human rights agreement in Helsinki, the Helsinki Accords.

Ford had a full assortment of tough issues, domestically and internationally, that demanded his full attention.

On the Sunday before the 1976 Presidential election, Auburn University Young Republicans were invited to a Ford campaign event in Plains, Georgia, the home of Jimmy Carter. We had a hay ride down main street  Plains and were escorted out of town by Plains police.

Note: The event was not a Ford campaign event. It was an anti-Carter event sponsored by farmer foes to the Carter family. There is a big difference in these types of events. I should have stayed away from this one.


Jim Patterson, Diplomat
Ford '76 Presidential 

Here is my President Ford Convention Staff identification badge for access at Kemper Arena, Kansas City, 1976. I donated my convention papers to the Ford Library in Ann Arbor.

Here is Dr. Henry Kissinger's remembrance of President Ford

Eulogy For Gerald R. Ford

Washington, D.C.

January 2, 2007

According to an ancient tradition, God preserves humanity despite its many transgressions because, at any one period, there exist ten just individuals who redeem mankind, without being aware of their role.

Gerald Ford was such a man. Propelled into the presidency by a sequence of unpredictable events, he had an impact so profound as rightly to be considered providential.

Unassuming and without guile, Gerald Ford undertook to restore the confidence of Americans in their political institutions and purposes. Never having aspired to national office, he was not consumed by driving ambition. In his understated way, he did his duty as a leader, not as a performer playing to the gallery.

Gerald Ford had the virtues of small-town America: sincerity, serenity and integrity. As it turned out, his artless decency rather than glibness became a political asset, fostering an unusual closeness to leaders around the world, which continued long after he left office.

In recent days, the deserved commentary on Gerald Ford's character has sometimes obscured how good a President he had been.

Gerald Ford's prudence and common sense kept ethnic conflicts in Cyprus and Lebanon from spiraling into regional war. He presided over the final agony of Indochina with dignity and wisdom. In the Middle East, his persistence produced the first political agreement between Israel and Egypt. He helped shape the Final Act of the European Security Conference in Helsinki, which established an internationally recognized standard for human rights, now generally accepted as having hastened the collapse of the former Soviet empire.

In his presidency, the International Energy Agency was established, which still fosters cooperation among oil-consuming nations. Gerald Ford was one of the founders of the continuing annual economic summit for cooperation among the industrial democracies. Throughout his twenty-nine months in office, he persisted in conducting negotiations with our principal adversary over the reduction and control of nuclear weapons. He sparked the American initiative to bring majority rule to Southern Africa - a policy that was a major factor in ending colonial rule.

Gerald Ford's actions were suffused with an emphasis on humane values. He stunned experts and, I may say, his Secretary of State when he used the first call on him by the Soviet ambassador - five days after his inauguration - to intervene on behalf of a Lithuanian seaman, who, four years earlier, had, in a horrible bungle, been turned over to Soviet authorities after seeking asylum in America. Against all diplomatic precedent, Gerald Ford requested that the seaman - a Soviet citizen in a Soviet jail - not only be released but be turned over to American custody. Even more amazingly, his request was granted.

Throughout the final ordeal of Indochina, Gerald Ford focused on America's duty to rescue the maximum number of those who had cast their lot with us. The extraction of 150,000 refugees was the consequence, and, typically, Gerald Ford saw it as his duty to visit one of the refugee camps long after public attention had moved elsewhere.

Gerald Ford summed up his concern for human rights at the European Security Conference in Helsinki. Looking directly at Leonid Brezhnev, he proclaimed America's "deep devotion to human rights and individual freedoms, to my country, they are not clichés or empty phrases."

Historians will debate for a long time over which President contributed most to victory in the Cold War. Few will dispute the Cold War could not have been won had not Gerald Ford emerged at a tragic period to restore equilibrium to America and confidence in its international role.

Sustained by his beloved wife Betty and the children to whom he was devoted, Gerald Ford left the presidency with no regrets, no second-guessing, no obsessive pursuit of his place in history. For his friends, he leaves an aching void. Having known Jerry Ford and worked with him will be our badge of honor for the rest of our lives.

Early in his administration, Gerald Ford said to me, "I get mad as hell, but I don't show it, when I don't do as well as I should. If you don't strive for the best, you will never make it."

We are here to bear witness that Jerry Ford always did his best and that his best proved essential to renew our society and bring hope to the world.


Jim Patterson
www.HumanRightsIssues.com