I took this photograph of President Gerald Ford in the White House Cabinet Room on May 14, 1975, as he met with his National Security Council about the Mayagüez crisis. The cargo ship Mayagüez had been captured by Khmer Rouge rebels, and it was up to the president to try to get the American crew released safely.
After diplomacy failed, Mr. Ford, who had been president for nine months, waved off one of the Joint Chiefs of Staff’s recommendations, which involved a B-52 strike on Phnom Penh, and instead ordered a strong but limited military action that ultimately secured the crew’s freedom. Tension was thick in that meeting, but the president’s hand was firmly on the controls. In my mind this incident was the fulcrum of his presidency, the point at which he came of age as commander in chief, and the photo shows that.
In some of the Mayagüez meetings, the president’s advisers offered up hypotheticals on how certain decisions might “play.” They wanted to make sure the world knew that America might still use overwhelming force in achieving its ends. Mr. Ford didn’t want to hear that. He had no bloodlust. He knew Vietnam was a debacle; it had been his painful duty to oversee the end of that horrible chapter of American history. But he refused to make innocent Cambodians pay for America’s mistakes in Vietnam.
For me, 30 years later, this photo is emblematic of Gerald Ford’s finally making the presidency his own. If I had to describe him in one word, it would be “resolute.”
The man I came to know and admire had a quiet and very powerful sense of self. He had the least guile of anyone I’ve ever met and a total lack of vanity. There were no “two Gerald Fords,” there was no other agenda, no secret life. An avid golfer to the end, he would never move his ball to improve his lie when no one was looking. To me that was the central theme of his character. I will miss him profoundly.
David Hume Kennerly, winner of a Pulitzer Prize in photography, was President Gerald Ford’s personal photographer.