Well written and convincing. On the other side, however, didn't that pardon lead, in many ways, to our current nightmare-- driven by Cheney, Rumsfeld, et al., who took the lesson from Watergate that the only real problem was getting caught?

Ford did some good things, but let's remember as well how his fecklessness led to the deaths of millions in Indochina with the triumph of the Communists. For all his faults, Nixon would've sent in the bombers like he did earlier and smashed the North Vietnamese offensive.

The guy above me says that the current crew o' crooks learned that the problem was getting caught. Yeah, look what happened to Nixon when he got caught...nothing. Thanks Ford...no man is above the law unless they are the law...Got to love this historical FACT from a group of people who go on about responsibility...and take none or dish none...

Call me a “Nixon hater” but I do believe he should have stood trial for his crimes. If that had happened I believe GW and his cronies would not have committed their war crimes. Consequently, I consider Ford’s pardon of Nixon a mistake.

That said, I also believe I am alive due to Ford being in office rather than Nixon when Saigon fell. I was on board the aircraft carrier USS Coral Sea which was diverted from a port call to Perth Australia back to Yankee Station. After the fall of Saigon we had two A-6 Intruders on deck. Both were armed with nukes and the target was the US built naval base at Cameron Bay. We also had a Soviet fast attack sub right on our tail. If we had launched, so would have the sub. I believe with all my heart and soul if Nixon had still been in office, he would have nuked the base.

1. David P: You have that Nixon thing wrong. Nixon did some bombing, but the Vietnam War was O-O-O-O-Ver by that time. Bombing would not have worked, anymore than it worked earlier. Plenty of people now alive remember. This is NOT yet a subject for abstract speculation. (Twit!)

2. Dr. Stan: That nuke info is the most interesting detail I ever have read about the end of Vietnam!

I believe that Ford was a good and decent man, who was exactly what we needed to reassure us after the quagmire of Watergate -- but not as a leader to take us forward after 1976. Regardless, let us quote him again: "Our Constitution works; our great Republic is a government of laws not men."

For that to be true, Nixon should have stood trial for his crimes. Period. I found the following phrase in this article astonishing: "America is simply not a banana republic in which former presidents should face the prospect of prison or ruinous civil judgments after leaving office." The definition of a banana republic is one in which who you are matters far more than the law. Nixon was pardoned by a friend and subordinate, a well-known party wheelhorse, who ultimately protected the Republican party from its mistakes so effectively that it paved the way for it to cynically become the "party of morality" under people like Newt Gingrich and Tom DeLay.

At this remove, there's no doubt about Nixon's guilt. It is known that he contemplated pardoning himself, which is possible (there are no limits on the presidential power of pardon), but would leave him instantly open to impeachment for misuse of presidential power. Obviously Nixon thought himself at risk.

Even if there was doubt, it would be settled by a court case. After all, the President could certainly pardon Nixon after the decision, at which point the guilt would at least be acknowledged. Instead, Nixon walked away with all his massive Presidential salary, his perks, and his freedom (unlike most of his subordinates) and was able to rebuild his reputation as a result.

The President should not be immune from justice by right of his position; that didn't work for the Roman Republic's dictators, either. The Founders were well aware of this, and as a result there's no such provision in our Constitution. The whole point of our government is to make it responsive to the will of the people when it goes awry. Protecting a former president from rightful justice does not serve this purpose, any more than abusing the system does, as when Clinton was inappropriately impeached by the party of Nixon.

Ford's support for the Indonesian invasion of East Timor that killed one-third of the Timorese population.

Count me among those who have always resisted the cliché’ about Nixon's Pardon being a great act of self-sacrifice and statesmanship. Like many others at the time, it was my sense that the agreement to pardon was probably reached as a condition of Ford's appointment as VP or at the latest was negotiated with Nixon's resignation. The idea that Richard Nixon would surrender the Presidency without protecting himself in advance from indictment and conviction has always seemed ridiculous to me. These events occurred during at a time characterized by even more political naiveté and a patriotic tendency to believe the absurd on the part of the general public.

Perhaps with Ford's passing, some of the real history will be revealed. Maybe not, some of the key players of that era are still with us and some still hold high office (Dick Cheney) in the current administration. It seems likely that a similar disregard for truth and transparency in government operated then as now.

Our National Nightmare may have been briefly interrupted, but it didn’t end with Nixon’s resignation. Elected officials at the highest levels of our government demonstrated their ability to avoid legal consequences for their political crimes. We very much did lower ourselves to the marginal legal status usually found in Republics known for raising tropical fruit. At the time, we revealed to those watching carefully that we were a nation ruled by men always and laws sometimes.

I have to disagree with those who have posted thus far. I think that the pardon of Nixon was the correct decision. Bogging the nation down in a post impeachment trail of Nixon for two years would have accomplished nothing. On the down side, it would have prohibited us as a country from moving on past Watergate and getting on with the business of healing. And as for the notion that Nixon didn't pay a price, he paid the ultimate price of a power hungry man -- he lost the ultimate office.

As for whether a post-Presidency criminal conviction would deter the current administration, I sincerely doubt it. Their activities are not as clearly criminal and they have gone to great lengths to obtain opinions from counsel that what they are doing is legal. It is difficult to imagine a circumstance under which you could convince a jury (beyond a reasonable doubt, no less) that a non-lawyer intended to break the law when he has that opinion in hand. And remember, that the legal issues in question are, to some extent, novel issues.