In My Time - Dick Cheney [57]
I suppose that’s why we all found ourselves so emotional on the very last stop of the campaign, in Ford’s hometown of Grand Rapids. On the morning of Election Day, the citizens of Grand Rapids unveiled a special tribute. It was a mural in the local airport terminal, showing scenes of Ford’s life from boyhood to the presidency. Seeing it for the first time, he got pretty choked up and spoke of his mother, Dorothy, and adoptive father, Gerald R. Ford, Sr., and all they had done for him. It was as sincere and sweet a moment as you’re likely to see during a campaign, and the genuine feeling in the room—a town’s pride in a favorite son, and a man’s loving gratitude to his parents—was lost on no one. I recall looking over to the press area and seeing a few tears even there. For all of us, it was a reminder that however the fates played that day, the career that began here in Grand Rapids was quite a story, and the vote we awaited could take nothing away from all that had been achieved in the life of this good man.
I HAD ONE MORE unexpected part to play in the election of 1976. Wednesday morning, after the results were in, it was time to call President-elect Carter. Having just about lost his voice by then, all Ford could manage were a few words of congratulations before turning the phone over to me to read his formal statement conceding the election. If Jimmy Carter ever enjoyed the sound of my voice, that would have been the time. I didn’t care for the task, but it was surely a great moment in Carter’s life, and he had earned the satisfaction and title that were now his.
The truest glimpses of democracy in action don’t always come during a presidential election, but often right afterward, when suddenly one team places itself at the service of the other. Overnight, you go from “How do we beat them?” to “How can we help them?” The finality of defeat has a way of awakening goodwill all around, sometimes more than the losing side might have thought possible.
So it was with the transition from Ford to Carter. To my own surprise, I had no trouble at all showing the ropes to Jack Watson, Carter’s transition chief, and the rest of the incoming staff. Under orders from Ford and with the details ably handled by Jack Marsh and military aide Major Bob Barrett, my job was to make sure the Carter people had the calm and orderly transition into power that Ford never got. The whole Ford team took pride in carrying out the president’s wishes.
On January 20, 1977, after a breakfast with senior White House staff and some final sorting and packing in the West Wing, I hopped in the motorcade to the Capitol. I figured it would be the last time I would have a close view of an inauguration, and the plan from there was to leave with former President Ford on the helicopter ride to Andrews Air Force Base. From just inside the doorway to the Capitol Rotunda, I watched Jimmy Carter take the oath of office and then in a gracious touch, thank Gerald R. Ford “for all he has done to heal our land.” Moments earlier, I had also made a point of watching the real transfer of power. At the very instant Carter had finished reciting the oath of office, I watched as the “football”—the heavy briefcase containing nuclear launch codes—was passed from the hands of Ford’s military aide to Carter’s.
There were handshakes and goodbyes on the way to the chopper, and as we lifted off and circled the Capitol dome, there was not much to say. Waiting for me at Andrews were Lynne and the girls; we joined a big crowd there to see the Fords off on their journey to California. And what next for us? Well, with no work to do, not much of a plan, and just ten days to go before my thirty-sixth birthday, we piled into