President Ford, thank you for being here today. It's a pleasure and it's nice to see you again. It's good to be out here. I want to ask you a few things about your experiences in Congress and in the presidency and get some of your advice for Ford School students. Delighted. You had a long career as a public servant and when you were chosen to be Vice President it was with a great deal of support and a claim. Say a few things about what the skills were that made you an effective public servant in Congress and in the presidency. There are basically three important ingredients that leads to some success in public service. Number one, you have to have a reputation for total integrity. Secondly, you have to have a reputation for hard work, discipline. And last and it's very important, you have to have a capability of getting good people to work with you. And my guess is those skills haven't changed 50 years later for our students than when you entered Congress. I'm sure they're identical, a little better communication perhaps because of the computer and so forth. But the fundamentals are still there. One of the things that you are obviously known for was someone who did have a real moral compass in public life. What are one of the two things that you did that you really, you know, situations where you had to make a decision that you thought had some pretty strong moral and ethical elements to it? Well of course one that's probably the most notorious was my pardoning of President Nixon. That was a decision that I made solely on my own judgment. And I did it because it was in the national interest, not because of any great sympathy for Mr. Nixon although I felt badly about it. It was important for me to clear the decks as I took over the White House. The first month that I was in the White House, I spent about 30% of my time arguing with lawyers or listening to others about what I should do with Mr. Nixon's tapes, Mr. Nixon's papers. I should have been spending 100% of my time on the serious problems of the people of this country. So in order to clear the decks so I could concentrate on what was more important, I frankly made the decision to pardon Mr. Nixon and get the matter out of my hands. Obviously that's an event that you are well known for. Are there one or two other things that you did while you were president that you really want to go down in the history books? Yes, when I became president in addition to the Nixon problems, I inherited a bad, bad economic circumstance. Interest rates were high, inflation was rampant, the federal budget was a mess. I had to come up with an economic plan that would cure those problems we called stagflation. And I was very lucky, Becky. My principal economic advisor was Alan Greenspan. He was chairman of my presidential council on economic matters. And Alan Greenspan's very good advice, which I followed, turned the economy around not overnight. You can't do it overnight, but in six to 12 months we went from stagflation to a healthy economy. Yeah, that was a good accomplishment. I know having bit on the other side of that. What do you tell to our students about how they should develop their own sense of public ethics individually as they move forward as public servants and into public life? What do they do to prepare themself for that? Well, I can't help but advise that they have good, perredual background. I know in my case, my mother, my stepfather, were a great inspiration to me to have integrity. And I don't think you can get a better source than to have parents that inculcate in you the kind of integrity that's necessary. And over a period of time, as you grow and as you mature, you have to always look at the compass and see that you're following it in the right direction. Interesting. Many of our students, as you know, aren't going into elected office, but are preparing for careers as policy analysts or as public managers. What do they need to know about how to work effectively with elected public servants? There shouldn't be any divisive relationship between elected people and people who are selected by others. They should be a team. And when I was in the Congress, I tried to develop, as a member of the House of Representatives, a relationship with public servants period, people who made a career of working in the Department of Agriculture, the Department of State, otherwise. If you have a good rapport between elective and others, you have done a good job on behalf of the country. You entered Congress in the late 1940s. Over that time, since that time period, both during your years in public service and your years since as a sort of an active observer, what's changed in public life? About the way politics gets done or the issues. Let me put it this way, Becky. I'm disappointed with the atmosphere of the political arena in the new century. Now I can look back when I went to Congress in 1949. There was a partisanship, yes. But it was not the bitter kind of political partisanship we find in Washington today. I don't know who to blame, whether it's the White House or the Congress. But this bitterness, this high partisan relationship is unhealthy. And somehow we've got to find a way to go back to the days when a relationship, although partisan, it was not bitter, it was not mean. And today, it's tragically the other way. And that makes life more difficult is my students go out and work in the agencies because they get caught in those political crossfires. That is unfortunate. And your students have to understand we may be going through a partisan transitional period which I hope will evolve and get rid of. So as I'm giving advice to the current crop of Ford school students and they're looking forward to 50 years in public service, what do you do to prepare yourself for a career that's really going to change over time? You might end up at a position you didn't expect to be in, for instance. That's a hard question to answer, Becky. You have to look at the facts at the time. If I were in Congress today, I would try to develop a rapport between my democratic counterparts and myself. When I was in the House of Representatives as the Republican leader, I worked with Speaker McCormick. I worked with Speaker Tip O'Neill. We used to debate an issue on the merits, on the floor of the House and it would be very bitter. But when we finished, we renewed our personal friendship which was very important to get things done. One of the byproducts of that sort of partisanship is a reduced respect for public servants, either their elected public servants are long time civil service. It's an issue that I hear my students actually talk about, going into government and will they get the respect in that career that they would really like to have. Do you have any suggestions or advice as to how either they or others can do things that sort of re-review?