Ford, Gerald (1913–2006)

The 38th president of the United States, Gerald R. Ford was the only president to serve without having ever been elected president or vice president. Considered a man of ordinary talents, Ford nevertheless steered the country through two of the nation's most tumultuous crises during his two-and-a-half-year presidency—the end of the Vietnam War and the Watergate scandal. Ford's elevation to the presidency occurred as the result of another scandal involving President Richard M. Nixon's first vice president, Spiro T. Agnew, who resigned from office in 1973. Ford was picked by Nixon, whose presidency was already clouded by the ongoing Watergate investigation, to serve as vice president under the terms of the 25th Amendment.

A 1935 graduate of the University of Michigan, where he played center on ...