The Nixon pardon saga made history

Forty-nine years ago, on Sept. 8, 1974, President Gerald R. Ford issued Proclamation 4311, pardoning former President Richard Nixon. It absolved Nixon of any punishment for alleged crimes of obstruction of justice related to the break-in at the Democratic National Committee Headquarters office at the Watergate Apartment complex in Washington, D.C. It was the first time a person who had served as president had been pardoned by presidential decree.

President Ford, in defending his choice, said he did so for the benefit of the country. He pointed to the historic Burdick vs. the United States case when, in 1913, George Burdick, the Editor of the New York Tribune, declined to cite his sources for a story alleging corruption in the office of U.S. Customs at New York. Burdick was indicted, then as a trial was being prepared, on Valentine’s Day 1914, President Woodrow Wilson issued a pardon to the accused, but Burdick refused it, claiming if he accepted, it would be an admission of guilt when he had done nothing wrong.

The case went all the way to the United States Supreme Court where arguments were heard that winter. On Jan. 15, 1915, the Justices handed down their decision affirming that by definition, if a pardon were accepted, it would be an acknowledgment that an offense had occurred in the first place, and that, by inference, this amounted to the admission of guilt. Of course, once a pardon is accepted, the accused, in the eyes of the law, would not be convicted, or if already convicted, would not be subject to penalty.

Sixty years later, in regard to Nixon, President Ford never used the words “admission of guilt” when issuing the pardon, but he did reference the Burdick case and let the public make their own personal decision as to the implications of the Supreme Court decision.

Officially, Ford stated the reason for the pardon was to prevent constitutional crisis and spare the nation of any stress that might accompany it. “A trial, a conviction, and anything else that transpired after this that the attention of the President, Congress, and the American people would have been diverted from the problems we have to solve.”

Nixon, thus, settled into private life at Yorba Linda, near his birthplace in California, never having to publicly state any involvement in the break-in and alleged cover-up.

Ford circulated the name of Donald Rumsfeld, Nixon’s young Ambassador to NATO, as his vice president. Whoever he would name, however, would, in accordance with the same 25th Amendment, since he was not engaged in the previous campaign, be required to stand before the House of Representatives and Senate for a majority vote to be approved as vice president.

Ultimately, seeing the name recognition and popularity of Nelson Rockefeller, Ford named the former governor of New York as his nominee in August and he was affirmed in the House 287-128 and by the Senate 90-7 in December.

This leads to two very pensive notes in history. One: had something happened to incapacitate Ford between Aug. 9 and Dec. 19 (four and a half months), then, by the Constitution, Democrat Carl Albert, the Speaker of the House, would have become president. Two: had Rumsfeld been selected, would he have been named secretary of defense by President George W. Bush and led the push for the United States military to enter into combat in Iraq and Afghanistan?

The answer to those questions, of course, we will never know (they are the known unknowns). However, there is one scenario that may have implications now.

If Donald Trump were to be convicted of any of the 91 criminal counts against him as well as sexual assault allegations, and had he not settled for $25 million in the Trump University fraud charges which saved him from criminal prosecution, then any presidential candidate could name him their vice president, and, at the end of inauguration, pardon him, then chose not to be president. That would make Donald Trump, a person who had a felony conviction to his name, the president of the United States, and it would all be constitutional.

Of the eight Republican candidates for president at the first debate in Milwaukee, a majority raised their hand when asked by moderator, Bret Baier, if they would support Trump should he be convicted in a court of law. Only two said they would not issue a pardon.

Ironically, the upcoming 2024 general election will be exactly two months after the 50th anniversary of President Ford’s pardon of Richard Nixon. It will be interesting to see what we have learned as a nation in the last half century.

David V. Wendell is a Marion historian, author and special events coordinator specializing in American history.