page_title: Gerald Ford
section_title: East Timor
hierarchical_section_title: Gerald Ford / Presidency (1974–1977) / Foreign policy / East Timor
caption_attribution_description: English: R-L: Adam Malik, Suharto, Gerald Ford, Henry Kissinger. Head to Head Meeting with President Suharto and Foreign Affairs Minister Malik of Republic of Indonesia on President's Far Eastern Trip, sitting on sofas in front of large carved teak wall sculpture telling story of the culture. 1975, December 6 – Jepara Room, Istana Merdeka (Credential Hall) – Jakarta, Indonesia. A7504-07 600dpi scan from Original Negative.
context_page_description: Gerald Rudolph Ford Jr. was an American politician who served as the 38th president of the United States from August 1974 to January 1977. Before his accession to the presidency, Ford served as the 40th vice president of the United States from December 1973 to August 1974. Ford is the only person to have served as both vice president and president without being elected to either office by the Electoral College.
  Born in Omaha, Nebraska, and raised in Grand Rapids, Michigan, Ford attended the University of Michigan and Yale Law School. After the attack on Pearl Harbor, he enlisted in the U.S. Naval Reserve, serving from 1942 to 1946; he left as a lieutenant commander. Ford began his political career in 1949 as the U.S. representative from Michigan's 5th congressional district. He served in this capacity for 25 years, the final nine of them as the House Minority Leader. In December 1973, two months after the resignation of Spiro Agnew, Ford became the first person appointed to the vice presidency under the terms of the 25th Amendment by President Richard Nixon. After the subsequent resignation of President Nixon in August 1974, Ford immediately assumed the presidency.
context_section_description: The former Portuguese colony of East Timor declared its independence in 1975. Indonesian president Suharto was a strong U.S. ally in Southeast Asia. In December 1975, Suharto discussed the plans to invade East Timor during a meeting with Ford and Henry Kissinger in the Indonesian capital of Jakarta. Both Ford and Kissinger made clear that U.S. would not object to the proposed Indonesian annexation of East Timor. According to Ben Kiernan, the invasion and occupation resulted in the deaths of nearly a quarter of the Timorese population from 1975 to 1981.
caption: Indonesian President Suharto with Ford and Kissinger in Jakarta on December 6, 1975, one day before the Indonesian invasion of East Timor.
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