The

The Gerald Ford occupies a truly singular place in American history. No one reached the White House in the manner in which he did without being elected either president

or vice president. Virtually no one expected that Ford would attain America's highest office,

and when he did become president, he took charge of a nation at one of its lowest points

in the aftermath of a devastating war and earth-shaking scandal and an ailing economy.

It fell to Gerald Ford to heal the nation and restore its confidence. Ford's election loss in 1976

relegated him in some people's eyes to the status of a minor or transitional figure.

Saturday Night Live turned him in the public's eyes into a bumbling buffoon.

But are these assessments fair?

Historian Richard Norton Smith has just written a major biography on President Ford

that shatters these misperceptions.

He has served as the director of the Herbert Hoover Presidential Library Museum,

the Dwight D. Eisenhower Center, the Ronald Reagan Presidential Library,

and the Gerald R. Ford Museum and Library,

and he was also the first executive director of the Abraham Lincoln Presidential Library Museum. His latest book is titled

An Ordinary Man, The Surprising Life and Historic Presidency of Gerald R. Ford. And it's in

bookstores right now. Mr. Smith, thank you for being on our podcast. Oh gosh, thank you for having me.

So you personally knew President Ford very well.

So tell me about that relationship. How did you first meet him? Well, actually, the first time we

met, so I guess my senior in college, and he came to, he was then vice president, and this was

March of 1974. It's about six months before he became

president. And he came to speak to the Harvard Republican Club. And as I said later on, it was a

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