Complaints about Ford’s White House also ranged from the extent of his travel to the fact that his travels seemed to make no sense. This may have been explained by the fact that the head of his scheduling office, Warren Rustand, played tennis three hours per day according to some inside the Ford White House.
25
Ford’s problems continued into September of 1975, when he ran afoul of Oklahoma farmers and the AFL-CIO as his Administration initially pushed for grain sales to the Soviets. He then reversed course and opposed the sales. Complicating the situation for Ford was George Meany, head of the powerful union and a strong anti-Communist, who ordered his members not to load grain destined for Russia.
Ford also received harsh criticism from the media when he campaigned in New Hampshire extensively for Republican Senate nominee Louis Wyman, who had actually won the election the previous November of 1974 by four votes out of hundreds of thousands cast. The Democratic-controlled Senate refused to seat poor Wyman until a special election had taken place. By the time of the new election in 1975, Big Labor had poured in thousands of workers and hundreds of thousands of dollars into New Hampshire to gain the seat for Democrat John Durkin. Reagan also campaigned for Wyman but escaped any criticism. Ford took the blame for the loss.
The situation became life threatening when, in the span of less than three weeks, two women tried to assassinate Ford during separate forays into California. In September, a woman by the name of Lynette “Squeaky” Fromme, one of the remaining disciples of the Charles Manson Family, pointed a revolver at Ford in Sacramento. Fortunately, the gun did not fire and Ford escaped injury. As she screamed to the Secret Service, “It didn’t go off fellas!” Fromme was apprehended while Ford was whisked away.
Later in September, Sarah Jane Moore, whom the media described both as a radical and a former FBI informant, pointed a rifle at Ford as he emerged from a downtown hotel in San Francisco. A Vietnam veteran standing next to Ford hit the barrel downward as the shot fired, and the bullet meant for Ford hit the curb.
The assassination attempts revived harsh criticisms of the Secret Service, renewed Democratic initiatives for federally mandated gun registration and frequent editorials questioning Ford’s frenetic gallivanting across the country. Ford courageously refused to curtail his public appearances and opposed the gun control legislation.
At the same time in the conservative challenger’s camp, no one had taken a shot at Reagan. That would happen years later. But in the wake of his speech to the Chicago Executives Club, he was accused of shooting himself, and his campaign, in the foot with his proposal to transfer the onus of $90 billion in federal services to the states.
Ford had his own ideas about running a government when he announced a major shakeup of his Cabinet on November 2. In Washington it was widely perceived that conservative hawks were the losers and the moderate supporters of détente were the winners in the Ford Administration. Ford dismissed James R. Schlesinger as Secretary of Defense and installed his forty-three-year-old aide, Donald H. Rumsfeld, in his place. Schlesinger was touted as an effective counterweight to Kissinger and his headlong rush toward more and more arms control agreements with the Soviets. Schlesinger was a favorite of conservatives, but Ford could not personally stand the man, whom he felt talked down to him.
William E. Colby, Director of the Central Intelligence Agency, was also dismissed. He was more hawkish on the Soviet threat than others surrounding Ford. George Bush replaced him after returning from his post as Envoy to China. Bush was not regarded as softer on the Soviets than Colby, but he was seen as loyal to Ford and more of a team player. Colby was offered an Ambassadorship by Ford but politely declined.
It was a Michael Corleone style “hit.” Each victim was called individually into the White House to be fired personally by Ford. Schlesinger later became a behind-the-scenes advisor to Reagan on national defense matters.
26
After the dismissals, Ford departed Washington for a meeting in Florida with Egyptian President Anwar Sadat. During a break in the meetings, Ford went for a swim at a private residence and promptly put a lump on his head when he dove into the shallow end of the pool.
Far more important, however, the shuffling of the Ford Cabinet was a clear-cut victory for Kissinger’s policies and his defenders, and a loss for conservatives in the Ford Administration. Kissinger and Schlesinger quarreled often. Although Kissinger was “forced” to give up his dual post of both Secretary of State and National Security Advisor, one of his protégés, Brent Scowcroft, was installed as head of the National Security Council.
A Reagan spokesman assessed the shake-up for the
New York Times
: “It shakes down as a victory for Henry [Kissinger]; it’s not going to help Ford very much. A lot of people in the party and the country think Henry has too much power already. A lot have thought of Schlesinger as a ballast against Kissinger in the nuclear arms talks.”
27
Someone else who came out on top in the shakeup was Rumsfeld. Although Rumsfeld had been promoted to Secretary of Defense-designate, he had a bruising year-long battle with the media, especially in Robert Novak and Rowland Evans’s nationally syndicated column. Rumsfeld’s Deputy, Cheney, also came in for harsh criticism from the feared duo and, according to Nessen, referred to the columnists behind closed doors in the White House as “Errors and No Facts.”
28
Rumsfeld and Cheney had met several years earlier when Cheney was a congressional fellow and Rumsfeld was a Congressman from Illinois. Cheney had interviewed for a position in Rumsfeld office but recalled that “we didn’t hit it off. He was arrogant, abrasive, I thought, and he thought I was an air-headed intellectual.”
A second meeting occurred later, after Rumsfeld became head of the Office of Economic Opportunity. This meeting went better when Cheney “interviewed” for the congressional relations job. He had been recommended by his boss, Congressman Bill Steiger of Wisconsin, and showed up at the appointed hour. Waiting in a crowded conference room, a secretary called out, “Is there someone named Cheney here?” Cheney replied in the affirmative and she escorted him to Rumsfeld’s office: “He looked up for a minute, and then looked back down at his desk and he said, ‘You, you’re congressional relations . . . now get the hell out of here!’”
29
In the days following the dismissals of Schlesinger and Colby, rumors floated around Washington that the ambitious Rumsfeld, acting as Ford’s con-sigliore, had been maneuvering to get two rivals for 1976 out of the way. The first was Rockefeller, whom he’d gotten dropped from the ticket. The other contender was George Bush, whose appointment as Director of the CIA would most likely take him out of contention for the ticket in 1976. The rumors claimed that the changes opened the possibility of a Ford-Rumsfeld ticket. Washington, of course, thrived on rumors and the more ridiculous, the more conspiratorial, the better.
Of the shakeup of his Cabinet, Ford’s priority seemed to be keeping Kissinger aboard and happy. But he was also interested in forming a team of his own that got along. Nixon enjoyed the squabbling among his Cabinet and White House staff, reasoning that it kept them away from him. But Ford was tired of seeing the details of each staff and Cabinet fight showcased in the pages of the
Washington
Post
or the
New York Times
. Ford’s White House, in a town where everybody leaked to the media, was the leakiest vessel of them all.
According to Nessen,
Ford must share some of the responsibility for the staff fighting that went on throughout his Presidency. He was too much Mr. Nice Guy.
Once in awhile, though, Ford did indicate to his staff that he was unhappy about the squabbling and the news leaks about the squabbling . . . Ford appeared at a meeting of his senior aides in the Roosevelt Room and declared, “I’m damn sick and tired of a ship that has such leaky seams. We are being drowned by premature and obvious leaks.” During one upsurge of stories that Kissinger was losing his power, Ford pounded his desk and told a group of aides, “G—damn it, I don’t want any more of this.” He threatened “dire consequences” for anyone who leaked stories against Kissinger.
30
The anti-Kissinger stories died down for a while. But in what would eventually be one of Ford’s most significant decisions, Cheney was promoted to Chief of Staff— the first time Ford had allowed the job title to be used in his Administration. Rumsfeld was a moderate Republican in the tradition of the Illinois GOP and did not understand Reagan’s appeal. But Cheney, unlike others around Ford, did understand Reagan, for several reasons: “First, I was a Westerner . . . Wyoming was an important part of my upbringing. Second, I was more conservative philosophically than a lot of my colleagues around the Ford Administration. Nelson Rockefeller for example. Rockefeller and I did not get along,” Cheney recalled. “He was convinced I was out to get him.”
31
Cheney was also more politically sophisticated than most in the White House, and Ford’s fortunes in the executive mansion and his campaign would slowly begin to improve. Not that the press noticed.
The
New York Times
wrote, “Mr. Reagan’s staff is superior to the President’s, despite the arrival at the President Ford Committee of the highly regarded Stuart Spencer of California as Political Director.”
32
Unaware of Cheney’s talents, the paper further reported, “A measure of the problems of the Ford enterprise is the fact that the political liaison at the White House is Richard B. Cheney, who has no experience in state or local, let alone national campaigns.”
33
Cheney would eventually assert his control over all aspects of the White House and the campaign, including initiating daily meetings in his office with new hire Stu Spencer, Rog Morton, Callaway, and Bob Teeter, the campaign’s pollster.
The turmoil over the Cabinet reshuffling in the Administration was just one more crisis for Ford in an endless stream of problems. Earlier, it was reported that Ford’s Director of Campaign Organization, Lee Nunn, had resigned, citing Bo Callaway’s inattentiveness to grassroots organizing. In fact, Spencer later said Nunn had been pushed out of the campaign due to his own incompetent work—not Callaway’s.
34
Also, David Packard had been let go from the Ford campaign.
In the spring of 1975, the President Ford Committee had trumpeted the arrival of Packard as its National Finance Director. Packard was considered a major acquisition for Ford. Not only was he a Californian and a conservative, but he had also been involved in some early planning of the Reagan campaign. He was also rich and knew a lot of other rich people, but with the passage of the Federal Election Act in 1975, the day of the “fat cat” and $100,000 contributions was over.
Unfortunately for Ford, Packard not only tried to run his operation from California but, upon being named Finance Director, set a public fundraising goal of $10 million by the end of 1975. Several months later, this goal was scaled back to five million. By the time Packard was forced out of the campaign, they had raised less than one million dollars.
Packard was from the old school of campaign fundraising; he tried to raise the money by phone in $1,000 chunks. He eschewed a direct mail program, losing months of precious time needed to develop a national house file of proven Ford contributors. Packard had authorized one small test mailing of 60,000 names, but no effort was undertaken for Ford beyond that. Six precious months essential in building a mail list for an incumbent President were wasted.
35
Under the newly formed Federal Election Commission, candidates for President were eligible for up to five million dollars in matching funds—courtesy of the American taxpayer—as long as the candidate abided by certain laws.
Attempting to curb the efforts of “fat cats” to buy off candidates, the Commission made corporate contributions illegal and stipulated that all contributions over $250 were ineligible for the federal matching funds program. Candidates also had to agree to spending ceilings in each state primary, which were determined by state population and primary voter turnout in previous elections. After jumping through all these hoops, candidates then had to scrupulously report money raised and spent.
Packard had raised only $950,000 by the time of his dismissal, but even more unfortunate for Ford was that most of this was raised in $1,000 checks from oil executives and old business cronies of Packard’s, with only the first $250 of each $1,000 contribution eligible for matching funds. Five members of the Rockefeller family each thoughtfully gave $1,000 to Ford.
36
The
New York Times
reported, “The departure of Mr. Packard served to underscore the difficulty Mr. Ford appeared to have in getting his campaign under way—an unusual problem for an incumbent President.”
37
The
Times
proceeded to summarize Ford’s problems in two areas: “Mr. Packard’s resignation may prove to be more worrisome than Mr. Nunn’s, at least in terms of public perception of how the Ford candidacy is faring, because Mr. Packard had been an ally of Mr. Reagan’s before being enlisted in May to head the President’s fund-gathering efforts.”
38
Ford would eventually pick Bob Mosbacher of Houston, an ally of George Bush, as his new Finance Director. Mosbacher eventually righted the Ford fundraising operation. Reagan’s direct mail guru Bruce Eberle had used the early months to his advantage to begin the process of building a reliable direct mail house file for his financial needs.
As of the September 30 reporting date for the Reagan campaign, it showed income of almost $400,000. Almost 80 percent of Reagan’s income was eligible for matching funds, making him competitive with Ford in the money game. Most of this money was coming in the form of direct mail solicitations. Eberle was delighted to see his efforts beginning to succeed. Reagan’s house file would eventually grow to over 400,000 names by the time of the Kansas City Convention, according to Eberle.
39