nevertheless knew his own worth, which was considerable.

He never seemed [awed] by his awesome assignment. But neither was he intoxicated by the trappings of power so unexpectedly thrust upon him. He was, in short, exactly the right man to restore balance, confidence and normalcy to his country.

[And] those were the qualities America desperately needed in that hysterical summer of 1974. [I] have never doubted that Richard M. Nixon would be considered by history as an important President. On his last desperate night in office I told him that posterity would treat him more kindly than his contemporaries.

The tempo of life--and of history--has since speeded up so that President Nixon has been able to experience a major restoration of his reputation in his lifetime. And those of us who served in his administration can only be gratified by this balancing of accounts.

But those emphatically were not the circumstances of 1974. The Presidency was in a shambles. The last Cabinet meeting of the Nixon administration had ended in as close

-7-

the Presidency was that he lacked the glibness of those who
had cultivated national exposure all their political lives.
But lack of articulateness is not the same as absence of
analytical skill; indeed a case could be made for the
proposition that these two qualities can stand in inverse
relationship to each other. Those of us in daily contact
with President Ford came to appreciate his thoroughness, his
good sense, but above all his no-nonsense analytic ability.
He dominated his Administration without appearing to do so.

The first major decision President Ford faced was what
to do about his tragic predecessor. At a remove of over ten
years it is difficult to reconstruct the spirit of revenge
and animosity then [abroad] I was not directly involved in
the decision so I do not know [in detail] the precise considera-
tions that led President Ford to pardon Richard Nixon. President
Ford in his customary calm, unruffled manner asked my view
once. [I told him that the idea of submitting President Nixon
to a trial would be seen as a blot on America by future

-8-

generations, shame us in the rest of the world and impose
a new, probably unbearable, torment on a man who had already
suffered [enough] President Ford did not reply, and never
returned to the subject. Ten days later he called to tell me
that he would announce a pardon the next day; characteristically
he neither referred to my previous advice, nor did he invite
last minute counsel. His conduct exuded the conviction that
it was clearly his responsibility.

It was without doubt the right decision though it [almost
certainly] cost Gerald Ford the Presidency. Perhaps the public
could have been better prepared for it, though this may be more
self-evident in retrospect than in the mood of the moment.
Historians will have to sort out this essentially tactical
side issue. [What] they will surely agree [on is] that there was
no possibility of healing the nation's wounds while a former
President was being [humiliated and humanly destroyed] in a
procedure certain to [be prolonged]. And it was unfair--
or so it would seem to a man of Gerald Ford's character--to
burden a subordinate such as the Attorney General or the

-10-

decisions had to be made. We thought it necessary to work
out a national strategy even when no immediate decisions were
to be made.
[before the President.] Gerald Ford was involved in great detail
at every stage of decisionmaking. And he insisted that all
[relevant Cabinet members] have their say without ceding a veto
to anyone. I was surely influential; the final decision, as
well as its shaping throughout the process, was emphatically
Gerald Ford's.

[And] it [turned into] a productive period. Gerald Ford
inherited the legacy of the stilborn Year of Europe. During
the last year of the Nixon administration an attempt was made
to reinvigorate Atlantic relationships. It was based on the
conviction that as the generation which remembered the close
wartime collaborations passed from the scene and as the
challenge from the East took on dimensions vastly transcending
the purely military one, a new spirit of partnership had to
be created relevant to those who had grown to maturity in
different circumstances. It was a good idea which [did] not

-11-

come off for a variety of reasons. All the leaders of the
West were either physically <u>or</u> politically <u> terminally ill</u>--
President Pompidou was dying; Heath and Brandt were losing
their political grip; President Nixon was engulfed by Watergate.
As a result what was intended as a symbolic gesture was engulfed
in endless bureaucratic negotiations--a symptom of which was
an <u>attack by Europe on</u>
<u>that</u> a project designed to strengthen consultation between
the two sides of the Atlantic <u>was attacked in Europe</u> because
we had put it forward without consultation.

In the end a formal, ritualistic declaration emerged
during President Nixon's last trip to Europe in June 1974.
But it was President Ford's Presidency which captured the
spirit of that endeavor. It can be safely stated that never
in the postwar period were personal relations more cordial,
consultation more intense and friction less apparent than
during President Ford's incumbency. His personal friendship
with his counterparts has survived to this day--a rare
occurrence among national leaders out of office. President