Ford's Grades For Carter, Reagan, Nixon

In 25 years of interviews with his hometown paper that could only be released upon his death, former President Ford once called Jimmy Carter a "disaster" who ranked alongside Warren Harding, and said Ronald Reagan received far too much credit for ending the Cold War.

"It makes me very irritated when Reagan's people pound their chests and say that because we had this big military buildup, the Kremlin collapsed," Ford told The Grand Rapids Press.

The best president of his lifetime, Ford said, was a more moderate Republican: Dwight D. Eisenhower.

Harry Truman "would get very high marks from me" for his handling of foreign crises, Ford said. He also praised Richard Nixon as a foreign policy master, despite the Watergate scandal that drove him from office.

Ford considered John F. Kennedy overrated and Bill Clinton average, admired George H.W. Bush's handling of the Persian Gulf War and had mixed opinions of Carter, who defeated Ford in 1976.

In 1981, Ford said: "I think Jimmy Carter would be very close to Warren G. Harding. I feel very strongly that Jimmy Carter was a disaster, particularly domestically and economically. I have said more than once that he was certainly the poorest president in my lifetime."

But two years later, he praised Carter's performance on the Panama Canal treaty, China and the Middle East. And in 1998, he said Carter "will be looked on as a better president than some comments we hear today."

"He was a very decent, fine individual," Ford told the paper. "There were no major mistakes. There just weren't a lot of exciting results."

Ford died Dec. 26 at the age of 93. During a Jan. 3 funeral service in East Grand Rapids, Carter said he and Ford had developed a close personal friendship over the years.

Ford commented on fellow presidents of the second half of the 20th century during a series of interviews with the Grand Rapids paper over more than 25 years, on condition that his remarks be withheld until after his death. Maury DeJonge, then a Press reporter, began the interviews in 1979. Mike Lloyd, editor of The Press, took over the interviews in 1981.

The Press reported on the interviews in a recent story and said it would publish another Sunday with Ford's reflections on his pardon of Nixon. The paper said Ford declined to rate George W. Bush, saying he didn't know the current president well enough.

Ford said Reagan, who challenged him unsuccessfully for the GOP nomination in 1976, was "a great spokesman for attractive political objectives" such as a balanced budget and defeating communism, "but when it came to implementation, his record never matched his words."

Reagan was "probably the least well informed on the details of running the government of any president I knew," Ford said. In a separate interview he said, "He was just a poor manager, and you can't be president and do a good job unless you manage."

Ford contended his negotiation of the Helsinki Accord on human rights did more to win the Cold War than Reagan's Pentagon buildup. Other key factors were the Marshall Plan and establishment of NATO, Ford said.

"When you put peace, prosperity and human rights against poverty, a massive unsuccessful military program and a lack of human rights, communism was bound to collapse," he said. "No president, no Democrat or Republican, can claim credit for those programs. I'll tell you who deserves the credit — the American people."

Ford hailed Truman for decisiveness in using nuclear weapons against Japan, meeting the communist challenge in Korea, supporting the Marshall Plan and aiding Greece and Turkey. But he said Eisenhower was even better, describing him as "the father of NATO" who prevented the Soviets from overrunning Western Europe and presided over a mostly prosperous economy.

"He was not a person who did a lot of evident things, but he ran the country in a very responsible way," Ford said.

Clinton rivaled Reagan for communication savvy, Ford said: "You have to be careful of what he (Clinton) says because it's so skillfully said."

Three years ago, Ford said, "On substance, I would rate Clinton about a 5. To hear him talk about it, he should have gotten a 10. I never felt that, when the chips were down, in a tough crisis, he would make the right decision. ... You could never give Clinton a high mark on integrity."