Gerald R. Ford

Served as President from 1974-1977
Era: The Seventies
American Identity and Culture
During Gerald Rudolph Ford’s presidency there was a major scientific advancement in the field of Astronomy and Aeronautics. This advancement was the landing of the Viking 1 and Viking 2 on Mars. These two satellite Rovers on mars have now landed and could now take pictures of the terrain of Mars, yielding new information on the red planet that no one else knew about. There were also new cultural developments such as the creation of Star Wars by George Lucas. George Lucas published it in 1977. There were also other new movies such as Ali: Fear Eats the Soul, an award winning film by Reiner Werner Fassbinder.
Economic Transformations and Globalization
The first thing that Gerald did for the Economy was to create the Economic Policy Board. Gerald Ford’s biggest goal was to lower the inflation in America. He started the “Whip Inflation Now” program where he publicized it with buttons and other things. The program asked United States citizens to try and limit their spending and consumption of consumer items made by factories and others. He even made a speech to start his campaign for the Whip Inflation Now Program. Although people though the speech was fake and it was only to appeal to the public, the actual point from that speech was to introduce a new plan that would last one year where five percent of all income tax increases would be on corporations and also the wealthy people.
Environment
During the Gerald Ford administration, the United States had to face the swine flu pandemic. This flu, named H1N1 was a form of flu that was thought to only affect pigs, however it had crossed over to humans now. Public health officials now began the mysterious prevention of combating this Swine Flu. People wanted Gerald Ford to ask for every United States citizen to be vaccinated. Even though the vaccination was given to the Americans, there were more deaths from the vaccines than from the actual disease itself.
Politics and Citizenship
After Richard Nixon resigned from office, the Vice President did not become president, instead it was Gerald Ford who did. Gerald Ford was not the Vice President nor was he voted into the position, being the first to do this. As soon as Gerald Ford became president, he pardoned Nixon from prison for any crimes that he may have committed in the past, partly because of Richard Nixon’s Watergate scandals. Because of this pardon, there were many critics who believed there was a “corrupt bargain” that had gone on between Richard Nixon and Gerald Ford. People thought that Gerald Ford only pardoned Richard Nixon because he Nixon was the one who allowed him to become the president so that he could later pardon him when Ford went into office as the president.
Slavery and its legacies in North America
In 1977 there was a new law known as the Anti-Discrimination Act of 1977. This new legislation ended discrimination in places such as the workplace, school, and also in other public serves. This new law now promoted the social equality whether this discrimination was racial, towards the disabled or because of different sexes. Gerald Ford also agreed with this as he believed that discriminating people in jobs was bad and that he hoped the Republican Party would stop this discrimination.
War and Diplomacy
During Gerald Rudolph Ford’s presidency, the Vietnam War had ended with Southern Vietnamese Nationalists surrendering to the Northern Vietnamese Communists. Since the Northern Vietnamese had won the war, it was finally over for the United States and they had left the country for good. As soon as Gerald Ford went into office, the northern Vietnamese invaded the south and Ford gave $522 million dollars for aiding the south in the war. Although Ford wanted to give it to them, Congress voted strongly against it and in the end, President Thieu in Southern Vietnam blamed the loss of their territory on the United States for not supporting them at all. Even though no money was given to them for military aid, a lot of money was given to help citizens leave the country and evacuate into safer places. American soldiers helped 5,595 Vietnamese citizens evacuate into the Southern Vietnamese Democratic capital of Saigon in the Operation named Frequent Wind.