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News Releases
President Gerald R. Ford
No. 119/06
December 27, 2006
STATEMENT BY AMBASSADOR JOHN BRUTON ON THE PASSING OF
PRESIDENT GERALD R. FORD
"I am deeply saddened by the death of former President
Gerald R. Ford. President Ford was a healing force in
US history. He was able to perform this role so well
because he believed the best of other people. Early in
his life he had written that people have 'more good
qualities than bad.' He said in his autobiography, 'I
prefer gentleness to violence, forgiveness to vendetta.'
"He first became active in politics in the Presidential
campaign of Wendell Wilkie in 1940 and was himself first
elected to Congress in 1948. He was a supporter of civil
rights, when Republican minority leader in the House of
Representatives during the Johnson Administration.
"As President, he relied on experience and accumulated
wisdom of years, rather than on ideology or theory. He
began a process of deregulation of the American economy
which formed the basis of its subsequent success.
"I had the unusual privilege of meeting President Ford
when he was still minority leader in the House of
Representatives and when he probably had little or no
expectation of ever being called upon to be President of
his country. I had spent a day observing how his office
worked. He struck me then as a remarkably courteous and
unaffected person, confident and comfortable in his
work. He represented the very best qualities of American
public service, as his subsequent career was to show."
Further Contact Information
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