US president who sought to heal Watergate wounds
Ford, who died Tuesday at the age of 93, rose from the Republican Party sidelines to replace then scandal-plagued vice president Spiro Agnew. In August 1974 Ford went on to finish the final two years of Nixon's term in office after the scandal stemming from the break-in at Democratic Party national headquarters at the Watergate complex forced Nixon to resign the presidency in disgrace.
Ford had been the oldest living US president. He was also the only one never to have been elected to office, having lost his 1976 presidential bid to Democrat Jimmy Carter.
For all latest news, follow The Daily Star's Google News channel. Ford was an amiable and respected Republican representative to Congress from the northern state of Michigan with a reputation for loyalty when Nixon picked him to replace Agnew in 1973. Agnew faced charges of conspiracy, extortion and bribery.
Even then, it was clear Nixon himself could be forced out by the cover-up over the Watergate break-in.
On August 8, 1974, Nixon became the only US president to resign. The following day Ford took the oath as the 38th president, and told Americans that he faced the task of healing "the internal wounds of Watergate".
"Our long national nightmare is over," he said. "Our constitution works. Our great republic is a government of laws and not of men."
Ford however angered many Americans when he issued the disgraced Nixon "a full, free and absolute pardon" just weeks after taking office, on September 8.
It was a decision that would be debated for years.
As president Ford cut government spending to fight inflation, recession and unemployment stemming from a sharp rise in oil prices.
Assassins twice tried to kill him in 1975.
Lynette "Squeaky" Fromme, a follower of cult leader Charles Manson, was arrested for pointing a loaded pistol at Ford while he was in Florida. Although there were four bullets in Fromme's gun, the firing chamber was empty when Secret Service agents pounced on her.
Seventeen days later Sara Jane Moore, a former FBI informant and would-be revolutionary, tried to shoot Ford as he walked from a San Francisco hotel to his waiting limousine. Moore fired once before she was disarmed.
Both attackers are serving life sentences.
Ford was born Leslie Lynch King Jr., in Omaha, Nebraska on July 14, 1913, the son of Leslie and Dorothy King.
His parents divorced and his mother moved to Grand Rapids, Michigan with her son. In 1916, she married paint salesman Gerald Rudolph Ford, who adopted the boy and changed his name.
The future president was the star of his high school American football team and attended the University of Michigan on a football scholarship. He turned down National Football League contracts to study law at Yale University.
Ford served aboard a naval aircraft carrier in World War II and afterwards joined a law firm in Grand Rapids, Michigan.
He was first elected to the House of Representatives in 1948. That same year he married Elizabeth Bloomer. The couple had three sons and one daughter.
He was elected Minority Leader and was the last surviving member of the Warren Commission, set up to investigate the murder of president John F. Kennedy. The Commission found that Lee Harvey Oswald acted alone, a conclusion that is debated to this day.
Speaking just before his 90th birthday, Ford said: "I hope historians 50 years from now would say that president Ford took over in a very difficult time -- when we had the Watergate scandal, the war in Vietnam, economic problems -- and in a period when there was great distrust of the White House, he restored public confidence."
In August 1999, Ford received the Medal of Freedom, America's highest civilian award, for his post-Watergate efforts.