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This Official American League Baseball was signed by members of the Hall of Fame at Cooperstown, New York on August 12, 1974. Congressman Donald J. Mitchell (R-New York) presented the baseball to President Ford on behalf of Ken Smith, the director of the National Baseball Hall of Fame.
Signatures featured on the ball include those of Cool Papa Bell, Roy Campanella, Jocko Conlan, Stan Coveleski, Bob Feller, Whitey Ford, Charley Gehringer, Lefty Grove, Jesse Haines, Harry Hooper, Monte Irvin, George Kelly, Buck Leonard, Ted Lyons, Mickey Mantle, Rube Marquard, Joe Medwick, Stan Musial, Satchel Paige, Sam Rice, Red Ruffing, Warren Spahn, Casey Stengel, Bill Terry, and Lloyd Waner.
Additionally, President Ford signed a baseball for the Hall of Fame, following a tradition dating back to President Taft.
The American nation had never faced a presidential election quite like the one in 1976!
Click through the NEW online exhibit highlighting the holdings of the Gerald R. Ford Presidential Library and Museum focusing on the 1976 Republican primary race and subsequent presidential election.
Now available in the CIA's Freedom of Information Act Electronic Reading Room: "Nixon and the People’s Republic of China: CIA’s Support of the Historic 1972 Presidential Trip"
Recently released, this collection marks the 50th anniversary of President Richard M. Nixon’s February 1972 trip to the People’s Republic of China (PRC) – a landmark event that preceded the establishment of diplomatic relations between the two countries. It includes a subset of the materials CIA produced for President Nixon and National Security Advisor Henry Kissinger in preparation for the seven-day visit. This trip paved the way for Gerald R. Ford’s visits to the PRC in June 1972 and December 1975.
Learn more and access the materials online here: https://www.cia.gov/readingroom/collection/nixon-collection
Image: President Ford and daughter Susan watch as Secretary of State Henry Kissinger shakes hands with Mao Tse-Tung; Chairman of Chinese Communist Party, during a visit to the Chairman’s residence, 12/2/1975 (National Archives Identifier 7062596, https://catalog.archives.gov/id/7062596)
“The search for human freedom can never be complete without freedom for women,” Betty Ford told those gathered at the Greater Cleveland Congress of International Women’s Year on October 25, 1975. The United Nations General Assembly proclaimed 1975 as International Women’s Year and established its three purposes: to promote equality between women and men; to ensure the full integration of women into economic, cultural, and social development at national and international levels; and to recognize the importance of women’s contributions to the development of friendly international relations and world peace. In her remarks Mrs. Ford also spoke about the importance for everyone to work towards equal rights for women. “The long road to equality rests on achievements of women and men in altering how women are treated in every area of everyday life,” she said. “That is why this conference is so important, because you are looking at the patterns of discrimination which must be ended before women are truly free.” Betty Ford’s full address can be found here.📷: First Lady Betty Ford Making Remarks at the Greater Cleveland Congress of International Women’s Year (IWY) in Cleveland, Ohio, 10/25/1975 (National Archives Identifier 27575808)
Presidents Day Trivia: Did you know George Washington got a promotion in 1976? Despite heading the list of U.S. Presidents, George Washington didn’t have top billing in another important register: the Army rolls. He held the rank of lieutenant general at his death, which allowed other subsequent officers with superior grades to take precedence over him in the listing. In 1976 Representative Mario Biaggi of New York sponsored House Joint Resolution 519 to correct this oversight. The resolution would posthumously elevate George Washington to the rank of General of the Armies of the United States, effective July 4, 1976. It also established that rank as the highest possible grade in the Army, taking precedence over all others past or present. In recommending the resolution be passed, the Committee on Armed Services noted that “This legislation would recognize General Washington’s unique contribution in the formation and leadership of the Army and the Nation by completing an action initiated by the Congress during his lifetime.” Congress had created the rank of General of the Armies of the United States in 1799 when war with France appeared likely, but the threat of hostilities subsided and Washington was never appointed to hold the position. President Ford approved the resolution on October 11, 1976. Documents from the White House Records Office: Legislation Case Files, Box 62, HJR519 Providing for the Promotion of George Washington.
Betty Ford met up with members of the U.S. Olympic Ski Team on the slopes in Vail, Colorado, on December 27, 1975. The 1976 Winter Olympics took place the following February in Innsbruck, Austria.
(White House Photograph A8706-09A / National Archives Identifier 12007120, https://catalog.archives.gov/id/12007120)
William T. Coleman, Secretary of Transportation William T. Coleman was sworn in as Secretary of Transportation on March 7, 1975, becoming the second African American to hold a Cabinet post. Coleman, a practicing lawyer, also brought prior experience in government service. He worked as an assistant counsel to the President’s Commission on the Assassination of President Kennedy, through which he first met Gerald Ford. Previously he had been a member of President Eisenhower’s Committee on Government Employment Policy. Supreme Court Justice Thurgood Marshall administered the oath of office at the swearing in ceremony. He and Coleman had previously worked together on NAACP civil rights cases in the 1950s, including several that led up to the Brown v. Board of Education decision. As Secretary of Transportation Coleman dealt with issues ranging from railroads to landing rights for the Concorde to trucking regulations. After the Ford administration he returned to practicing law. Coleman received the Presidential Medal of Freedom from President Bill Clinton in 1995. 📷: Justice Thurgood Marshall and William T. Coleman in the Red Room prior to Coleman being sworn in as Secretary of Transportation. March 7, 1975. (White House photograph A3576-23A)
Betty Ford and Washington-area school children visited the Martin Luther King Memorial Library on January 14, 1976, in honor of Dr. King’s Birthday on January 15. Dr. Hardy Franklin, director of the DC Public Library System, guided their tour. Source: catalog.archives.gov
Happy New Year!
Gerald Ford began 1935 by playing in the East-West Shrine Game in San Francisco on January 1. Played annually since 1925, this college football all-star game helps raise money to support Shriners International’s charitable activities, including Shriners Hospital for Children.
Although voted most valuable player on the 1934 Michigan squad, Gerald Ford was far from a household name. He received national recognition when he was invited to join the East Shrine Team. Ford later recalled his experience in a July 1974 article for Sports Illustrated:
The Shrine signed two centers for the East, a boy from Colgate named George Akerstrom, and me. On the train ride from Chicago to California, Curly Lambeau, the coach of the Packers, went from player to player, plying the good ones about their pro football interest. He ignored me. Then in the first two minutes of the game Akerstrom got hurt. I played the rest of the way – 58 minutes, offense and defense.
Ford’s performance certainly got Lambeau’s attention. He received an offer to play for the Green Bay Packers, which was also matched by the Detroit Lions. Ford would go on to play in another All Star Game in Chicago in August 1935, but he ultimately opted to go to law school rather than to pursue a professional football career.
Images: Program from the Tenth East-West Shrine Game, 1/1/1935, from the Ford Scrapbooks Volume 1A
1935 East Shrine Team Photo, ca. 1/1935 (Ford Scrapbooks Photograph AV82-18-0030)
Join us in cheering on the Michigan Wolverines as they take on the Georgia Bulldogs! Here we see Gerald Ford on the football field at the University of Michigan in 1933. (Image H0035-03)
Looking for a present for someone who’s hard to shop for? Consider the gift of calculator humor!
When President Ford traveled to the Far East in November 1974 he did some early Christmas shopping, picking up pocket calculators in Japan. He planned to give them to his friends and colleagues in Congress.
Back home President Ford personally made a list of the recipients:
The calculators went to Speaker of the House Carl Albert, House Majority Leader Thomas P. “Tip” O’Neill, House Minority Leader John Rhodes, House Minority Whip Les Arends, President pro tempore of the Senate James Eastland, Senate Majority Leader Mike Mansfield, Senate Majority Whip Robert Byrd, Senate Minority Leader Hugh Scott, and Senate Minority Whip Robert Griffin. The President might have forgotten to check it twice, however, since House Majority Whip John McFall was later added.
President Ford sent a letter with the devices that included special operating instructions:
“It is an excellent pocket calculator–but it also has other accomplishments. For instance, if you punch 77340 into the calculator and then turn it upside down, you will see what the Republicans said after the 1974 elections.”
“But this little machine is also a fortune-telling calculator–and if you punch in 3507 and turn it upside down, you will see what we don’t intend to do in 1976!”
Based on the thank you letters sent to President Ford the calculators were well received. Speaker Carl Albert reported, “I am having a lot of fun with it, and I am finding it very useful.” John Rhodes wrote that “I will treasure always the pocket calculator and its special message for 1976!”
Citation: Documents from the Robert T. Hartmann Files, Box 15, folder “President - Christmas Presents (1)”
President Ford attended a memorial ceremony held at the USS Arizona Memorial at Pearl Harbor on December 7, 1975. Although he was the third President to visit the Memorial, he was the first to do so on the anniversary of the attack.
The ceremony included the presentation of floral wreaths by 37 veterans and civic organizations. Before placing his own wreath President Ford delivered remarks about the significance of December 7, 1941, and the memorial:
We who remember Pearl Harbor will always remember. For us it is a moment etched in time, a moment of shock and mixed feelings and particularly disbelief, a moment of shame and a moment of sorrow, of anguish and of anger, an end to irresolutions, a summons to action, the start of a total commitment that comes but rarely to men and to nations.
Whoever watched the Pacific churned by winds of wars comes to this hallowed place with feelings overcoming words. Our shipmates who rest in honor here, our comrades in arms who sleep beneath the waves and on the islands that surround us need no eulogy beyond the eternal gratitude of the land that they loved.
