‘Leader of character’

WASHINGTON – The nation’s capital bade a stately farewell Tuesday to Gerald R. Ford, the 38th president, at a solemn funeral where he was lauded by the current president as “a good and decent man” whose affability cloaked a “firm resolve.”

President Bush escorted the former president’s widow, Betty, down the long center aisle of Washington’s National Cathedral to the front row, where she sat stoically through the tributes, flanked by her sons and daughter, her face etched in grief.

“Gerald Ford assumed the presidency when the nation needed a leader of character and humility, and we found it in the man from Grand Rapids,” Bush told the crowd, gilded by former presidents and first ladies and serenaded by a half-dozen choirs, bands and orchestras. “President Ford’s time in office was brief, but history will long remember the courage and common sense that helped restore trust in the workings of our democracy.”

The state funeral culminated four days of ceremonies in Washington that reflected the character and career of the man: the earnest Midwestern congressman, the reassuring vice president and the accidental president who steadied the nation following the resignation of Richard M. Nixon.

“History has a way of matching man and moment,” said former President George H.W. Bush, comparing Ford to other presidents who ruled in dark times. “And just as President Lincoln’s stubborn devotion to our Constitution kept the union together during the Civil War, and just as FDR’s optimism was the perfect antidote to the despair of the Great Depression, so too can we say that Jerry Ford’s decency was the ideal remedy for the deception of Watergate.”

Ford became president in 1974, after Nixon left office to avoid impeachment, and served until the end of the term in 1977. He died at home last week in Rancho Mirage, Calif. At 93, he was the longest-living ex-president.

Following the service, Ford’s body was flown aboard one of the planes used as Air Force One to his hometown of Grand Rapids, Mich., where his presidential museum is located and where he lay in state through the night.

He is to be buried on the grounds today.

In Grand Rapids, thousands of somber-faced mourners lined the streets of downtown throughout the day, shivering in the winter air and waiting for the arrival of the modest hearse and a chance to see Ford’s casket.

Visitors steadily filed into the museum. Boy Scouts and police officers came first, followed by the curious and the mournful, whose mood leaned less toward sorrow and more toward pride in one of their own.

“I remember all the hoopla they had for President Reagan when he died, and I’m glad there’s been far less for Jerry Ford,” said Lara Lynn Dreeter, 48, a high school teacher who drove from Indianapolis to pay her respects. “He wasn’t a former actor. He wasn’t a Kennedy. He was a good ol’ Midwesterner, and we honor our dead with restraint, not flash.

“To do anything else would be an insult to his memory.”

The presidential funeral was the second in less than three years for the nation’s capital, which gave Reagan a regal send-off in 2004.

By contrast, while Ford’s funeral had all the military trappings accorded a former commander-in-chief – 21-gun salutes, honor guards, military choruses – there were also notes of the ordinary.

Ford’s children greeted members of the public who came to pay their respects as their father lay in state in the Capitol Rotunda. Ford’s casket was carried from the Capitol to the cathedral in a conventional hearse instead of a horse-drawn caisson. At Andrews Air Force base, a troop of Boy Scouts, one in blue jeans, saluted the only Eagle Scout to have served as president.

And when Ford’s casket was unloaded in Michigan, the marching band from the University of Michigan – where he had been a star football player – struck up a somber version of the Michigan fight song. As president, Ford had preferred that tune to the usual fanfare of “Hail to the Chief.”

Former NBC anchorman Tom Brokaw, whom Ford had asked to deliver his eulogy, praised him for bringing “Main Street values” to the White House.

“Once there, he stayed true to form, never believing that he was suddenly wise and infallible because he drank his morning coffee from a cup with the presidential seal,” Brokaw said.

The funeral for a transitional president comes during another time of transition in the nation’s capital, as political leaders prepare for this week’s transfer of congressional power from Republicans to Democrats. Signs of the impending shift were evident: Speaker-to-be Nancy Pelosi, D-Calif., sat directly behind outgoing Speaker J. Dennis Hastert, R-Ill.

Indeed, the funeral served as a reminder of a different era of Republicanism, when, as Ford famously said, politicians could disagree without being disagreeable.

Among Ford’s 20 honorary pallbearers were two men closely tied to the current president – Vice President Dick Cheney and recently retired Secretary of State Donald H. Rumsfeld, both of whom served Ford as chief of staff. Also among the pallbearers were former secretaries of state Henry Kissinger and James A. Baker III, former national security adviser Brent Scowcroft, and former Treasury Secretary Paul O’Neill.

Two light moments eased the solemnity of the occasion.

Brokaw joked about the many pictures of Ford in the wide lapels and loud ties of the 1970s, suggesting that “some of those jackets … they’re eligible for a presidential pardon, or at least a digital touch-up.”

And former President Bush noted that a new form of presidential humor took root under Ford, who despite his famous athleticism was lampooned on late night television as a klutz.

In Grand Rapids, as the hearse pulled into the driveway of the Gerald R. Ford Presidential Museum at sunset, the crowd grew silent and watched a military detail escort the casket into the main lobby for a private family ceremony.

Ford lay at rest surrounded by artifacts that marked his presidency.

Upstairs, just a few steps from the casket, were the lock-picking tools used in the Watergate break-in; the staircase from the rooftop of the U.S. embassy in Saigon, used by thousands to flee in the fall of the city; and a handgun used in one of the two assassination attempts made on Ford during his presidency.

Museum officials said that gun has always bothered Betty Ford, who sat huddled in a blue chair before the flag-draped casket.

Betty Ford, 88, shook hands with well-wishers, her frame frail and hunched.

Michigan Gov. Jennifer Granholm stressed that the former president embodied the Midwestern spirit of hard work and modesty, and noted that he lived by three rules: tell the truth, work hard and always be on time for dinner.

“Welcome home to the city where you and Betty were married … Betty in a $50 dress, and you in muddy shoes,” Granholm said. “Mr. President, we are proud that you found your way home.”

As the governor spoke, Betty Ford closed her eyes and clenched her lips. As wreaths of white roses and green ivy were placed at the edges of Ford’s casket, the former first lady began to weep and quietly mouthed the words “Thank you.”