The Strange Legacy of Presidential Libraries

President Ford, pardoning President Nixon

I am not a sexy traveler, nor am I a casual one.  I usually go into a road trip or a vacation with an exact list of what I'm going to do, and while I don't always come out ahead (organized John is always better at this than actual John, who sometimes values relaxing over production), I hit at least a few of my "to do's."  Recently, I decided to randomly do a few days in Michigan, as part of my quest to see all fifty states (just four more to go-New Mexico, Oregon, Idaho, & Alaska all competing for the title of my final state!), and the number one thing on my list was to see the presidential library and museum of Gerald Ford (they're in different cities, a bit of a question mark for a man who didn't even fulfill a full-term, but that's a complaint for a different day).  I'm also trying to see all of the presidential libraries, and trying to do so before Trump has one as I am not giving him a dime of my money to that man even if it impacts my OCD to not see all of them (for the record, missing six-Hoover, Truman, LBJ, Nixon, Regan, and Bush Sr...and yes, the fact that most of those are Republicans is not a coincidence).

While at the Ford library, I was struck by a lot of things, some good even though I don't support a lot of his policies (Nixon/Ford is around the era that the Republican Party, historically, would have gotten too conservative for me if I'd been alive & voting at the time, though you'd likely have to go back to Teddy Roosevelt before you'd find a time I'd actually vote for a Republican for president).  His wife was an amazing woman, and the museum in Grand Rapids is very well-done (Grand Rapids, if you can get past the Betsy DeVos of it all, has some fascinating architecture that I glanced around at before leaving for the day).  But I was also struck by the tone that Ford took with one of his first acts as president, one that most historians would agree hurt his reelection chances, perhaps so much that it cost him a second term: his pardon of former President Richard Nixon.

It's worth remembering that presidential libraries & museums are not traditional, staid establishments looked over by the watchful eye of a non-partial historian.  While they contain fascinating artifacts and insight into powerful men & women (first ladies usually have their own wings in these museums), they are carefully curated by the president after his time in office, and in FDR's case, during his time in office.  The only case where this didn't happen (for obvious reasons) was John F. Kennedy, and in his situation his wife and brother had a heavy hand in curating the museum.

As a result, presidential libraries/museums (to clarify really quickly-while there are mountains of materials from the president's administration, the main point for tourists is going to the museum, not the library, so picture this more as a museum if you've never been to one, frequently near where the president lived or held office before they were in the White House) always need to be seen through sharp eyes.  The president is bringing forward a politician's view of their history.  This isn't unique to Ford, of course.  Bill Clinton's library makes very specific, select notes about his impeachment trial, embedding it between more reputable accomplishments from his administration, and you'd be forgiven for thinking PEPFAR was a more newsworthy aspect of George W. Bush's administration than Hurricane Katrina if you went simply by the size of the exhibits.

President Donald Trump (R-FL)

But Ford's struck me because of the way it was presented, and the ramifications that it has for today, as we face the impeachment trial of Donald Trump.  Like Trump, Nixon indisputably broke the law.  As much as people want to quarrel over the reasons for impeachment or "what about Biden/Hillary? style nonsense," the impeachment trial set before us clearly shows criminal misconduct , the kind that almost surely would have Trump in a courtroom right now were it not for him being the president.  And the Ford library never questions whether or not Nixon broke the law, in fact going out of its way to point out that Ford was chosen because he was not involved in the Nixon scandals & would keep his nose clean on such matters.

However, Ford makes a point of stating that his pardon was done to "heal the country" and has comments from historical figures commending his decision.  Ford even relies upon the old trope of having a political opponent show that he was right by featuring a video of Ted Kennedy, someone whom Ford hardly would have agreed with on anything in life, stating that despite the Massachusetts senator's longtime criticism of Ford for pardoning Nixon, Kennedy had been wrong and Ford was right in the moment.  This is not an isolated opinion-it's in fact one I've read in multiple books about the matter, including generic textbooks that are supposed to be based solely in fact.

But Trump calls into question the wisdom of Ford's decision.  While Ford would justify his actions by claiming that, thanks to Burdick vs. United States, Nixon had admitted guilt by accepting the pardon, this rings hollow today.  Donald Trump feels he's above-the-law mostly because he appears to be as long as Mitch McConnell is in power, and has wielded his presidential pardon to the point where public speculation is that someone like Paul Manafort wouldn't cooperate fully because he knows his best shot at getting out of jail would be Trump's pardon pen.  Trump likely would have felt differently in this situation (and certainly people like Manafort and others involved in this would have), had he seen Richard Nixon behind bars.  Nixon was humiliated, his reputation forever tainted and an asterisk next to his name for the rest of history (for someone as focused on legacy as Nixon, this is hardly nothing), but in the grand scheme of things he broke the law and didn't have to do what we expect of Americans who break the law-he didn't face a court of his peers and prison time.  Ford's decision to let the president not pay penance for his crime the way that others of us would have feels like a direct correlation to a man who thinks that he is so above the law that he can get away with crimes in plain sight, and that his accomplices know can be washed away with a pen.  I think, in the era of Donald Trump, it's time to revisit the wisdom of Gerald Ford's decision.  It would have been impossible for the former president to know what one of his successors was like, but he knew from observing Nixon first-hand what a president could be capable of doing.  Ford, an honorable man by all accounts, shouldn't have saved the president he served under to try and move on from the mess, perhaps trying to have his own legacy in the process.  Because at this point, it's hard not to see the shadow of Donald Trump lurking as one of the bigger potential aspects of Gerald Ford's legacy, especially if he too gets out of criminal activities unscathed.