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The Gerald R. Ford Presidential Library and Museum

As required, the Gerald R. Ford Library and Museum were built with private and non-federal dollars and opened to the public in 1981. The Library was dedicated in April and the Museum the following September. The National Archives maintains the buildings and runs the runs the programs, but we rely on the Gerald R. Ford Foundation and other partners to fund programs, research grants and new exhibits.The Ford Library in Ann Arbor

The Ford Museum in Grand Rapids

2- 21 million pages of materials 400+ sets of papers 500,000 audiovisual items 17,000 artifacts holdings include Congressional, Vice Presidential, and Presidential materialsOverview of HoldingsComparison with the two most recent Presidential Libraries:

George H.W. BushProducing 1 million e-mails / month = 96 million over 8 years- plus paper documents

Clinton- 80 million pages of documents- 50 million e-mails and documents75,000 artifacts and presidential gifts

Gerald R. FordCongressionalPapers

Congressional Papers ( 13 terms)

These include office filesConstituent correspondenceCommittee reports (Warren Commission papers regarding John F. Kennedys assassination, including the attending physicians report (George G. Barkley 11/27/63)

Presidents Commission on the Assassination of John F. Kennedy (Warren Commission) Files

National Security Adviser Files

Classified Documents

National Security Advisor Files - Fall of SaigonMarch April 1975

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Congressman Ford and VietnamServes in the Navy during WWII. The experience changed his world view.

Seat on the House Subcommittee on Defense.

Tours Vietnam in 1953.

By the late 1960s Gerald Ford still felt the North Vietnamese could be defeated.

Paris Peace Accord signed in January 1973.

War Powers Act of 1973 signed in November.The 1970s

Richard Nixon announcesend ofVietnam WarGerald Fordbecomes38th Presidentof theUnited States

Ford Library Research Collections:

White House Presidential Papers- Includes all papers from files of all White House staffAlmost by definition, the decisions that must be made in the Oval Office are difficult. If theyre easy, theyre made elsewhere in the federal bureaucracy.

Gerald R. Ford38th President of the United States19a full, free, and absolute pardon

Tell TerHorst StoryGerald R. Ford and the Vietnam WarThe Fall of Saigon

21Tell Madeline Albright story It was the saddest hour of my time in the White House, sitting in the Oval Office and watching those last Americans being finally evacuated from Vietnam. To see United States troops kicked out, literally, was a hard thing for a President to swallow, and hard for most Americans to swallow.22PresidentialDecision-making

The Fall of Saigon

Timeline1974August 9:Gerald R. Ford sworn in as 38th President of the United StatesAugust 12:Gerald Ford addresses a Joint Session of CongressAugust 13:Congress cuts the budget for South Vietnam in half.August 19:Addresses the Veterans of Foreign Wars in Chicago, announcing his Clemency ProgramSeptember 16: Unveils Clemency ProgramDecember 30:Ford signs Foreign Assistance Act of 1974

24Timeline1975January:North Vietnam steps up movement into South Vietnam.March 25:Ford meets with Secretary of State Henry Kissinger, National Security Advisor Major General Brent Scowcroft, Ambassador Graham Martin, Army Chief of Staff General Frederick C. Weyand.March 26:State Department announces beginning of evacuation of remaining U.S. personnel and Vietnamese refugees.April: Evacuation of South Vietnamese orphans, Operation Baby Lift.April 4:Receives General Weyands memo regarding the status of South VietnamApril 5:Meets with General Weyand report on situationMeets with National Security CouncilApril 10:Addressed Joint Session of CongressApril 14:Senate Foreign Relations Committee requests a meeting with President FordApril 17:Khmer Rouge troops take CambodiaApril 23:Gives Tulane University SpeechApril 25:Final siege of Saigon beginsApril 28:Air Force halts evacuation flights because of artillery attacks. Ford convenes NSC Ford orders final evacuationApril 29:In 16 hours 6,500 Americans and South Vietnamese are evacuated from Saigon.

North Vietnamese forces step up their advance into South Vietnam. By the end of March 1975 they control most of the country.

Ambassador Graham Martin, U.S. Army Chief of Staff Gen. Frederick Weyand, Secretary of State Henry Kissinger discuss the situation in Vietnam, March 25, 1975.April 1975The Final Month

April 10President Ford Addresses aJoint Session of CongressPresident Truman's resolution must guide us today. Our purpose is not to point the finger of blame, but to build upon our many successes, to repair damage where we find it, to recover our balance, to move ahead as a united people. Tonight is a time for straight talk among friends, about where we stand and where we are going.

A vast human tragedy has befallen our friends in Vietnam and Cambodia. Tonight I shall not talk only of obligations arising from legal documents. Who can forget the enormous sacrifices of blood, dedication, and treasure that we made in Vietnam?

Under five Presidents and 12 Congresses, the United States was engaged in Indochina. Millions of Americans served, thousands died, and many more were wounded, imprisoned, or lost. Over $150 billion have been appropriated for that war by the Congress of the United States. And after years of effort, we negotiated, under the most difficult circumstances, a settlement which made it possible for us to remove our military forces and bring home with pride our American prisoners. This settlement, if its terms had been adhered to, would have permitted our South Vietnamese ally, with our material and moral support, to maintain its security and rebuild after two decades of war.

The chances for an enduring peace after the last American fighting man left Vietnam in 1973 rested on two publicly stated premises: first, that if necessary, the United States would help sustain the terms of the Paris accords it signed 2 years ago, and second, that the United States would provide adequate economic and military assistance to South Vietnam. April 23President Ford Speaks At Tulane UniversityToday, America can regain the sense of pride that existed before Vietnam. But it cannot be achieved by refighting a war that is finished as far as America is concerned. As I see it, the time has come to look forward to an agenda for the future, to unify, to bind up the Nation's wounds, and to restore its health and its optimistic self-confidence. The Final 48 HoursApril 28The Air Force halts evacuation flights.

The President convenes a meeting of the National Security Council.

Just before midnight, Gerald Ford orders the final evacuation of Saigon.April 28

National Security Council Meets

April 29

State Department Cables to and from Ambassador Graham Martin, April 29, 1975State Department cables to and from Ambassador Graham Martin

Interesting story of how these document were acquired during the evacuation from Saigon, Ambassador Martin took the federal document with him rather than leaving them behind. Cables covering 1963 to the pullout in 1975 were in a footlocker stored at his daughters apartment in Washington. When he moved them to his family home in Winston-Salem, NC, he arrived late, and left the footlocker in the car, and inadvertently, the key in the ignition. That night, a gang of young car thieves stole the car. Two weeks later, two high school girls happened on a curious stack of papers stamped top secret on the side of a road, and a girls mother notified the FBI. A few days later, one of the car thieves led agents to an abandoned shack where the rest of the papers had been dumped. (Frank Snepp Irreparable Harm)

Scowcroft (Situation Room) to Martin:

Insure that all 400 Americans in the Embassy compound are evacuated in this operation ASAP.

9:47 a.m. EST 1:42 p.m. Zulu TimeFrom Secy. Of State Kissinger to Martin (via Brown)

IBM headquarters reports its personnel still in Saigon and is most disturbed. Do what you can.

10:11 a.m. EST 2:11 p.m. Zulu Time

The EndIn 16 hours, United States forces evacuated 6,500 Americans and South Vietnamese from Saigon, ending decades of American involvement in the area.

Refugees

What Would You Do?Refugees & ImmigrationThere were now over 120,000 South Vietnamese refugees men, women, and children who had nowhere to go.

On April 30, 1975 Gerald Ford requested $507 million from Congress for refugee transport and care.

The United States House of Representatives rejected that request the following day.April 1975Operation Baby LiftThe evacuation of South Vietnamese orphans begins.

Refugees escaped using any method available to them On footBy boatBy air

Political Cartoons

Amnesty

President Gerald R. Ford's Remarks Announcing a Program for the Return of Vietnam Era Draft Evaders and Military DesertersSeptember 16, 1974 Good morning:

In my first week as President, I asked the Attorney General and the Secretary of Defense to report to me, after consultation with other Governmental officials and private citizens concerned, on the status of those young Americans who have been convicted, charged, investigated, or are still being sought as draft evaders or military deserters.

On August 19, at the national convention of Veterans of Foreign Wars in the city of Chicago, I announced my intention to give these young people a chance to earn their return to the mainstream of American society so that they can, if they choose, contribute, even though belatedly, to the building and the betterment of our country and the world.

I did this for the simple reason that for American fighting men, the long and divisive war in Vietnam has been over for more than a year, and I was determined then, as now, to do everything in my power to bind up the Nation's wounds.

I promised to throw the weight of my Presidency into the scales of justice on the side of leniency and mercy, but I promised also to work within the existing system of military and civilian law and the precedents set by my predecessors who faced similar postwar situations, among them Presidents Abraham Lincoln and Harry S. Truman. draft evaders and military deserters24 months of alternate serviceClemency Review BoardThe primary purpose of this program is the reconciliation of all our people and the restoration of the essential unity of Americans within which honest differences of opinion do not descend to angry discord and mutual problems are not polarized by excessive passion. never did enough to win. We always did just enough to keep the battle going.

Demise

At the end o f the Museum and Librarys 25th anniversary year of celebration, everything changed

The Library and Museum became center stage during a national time of mourning and remembrance

62,000 people of all ages and abilities passed through the Museum doors during a 17.5 hour period through the night, waiting up to 6 hours to pay their last respects to a man they admired.Burial

For more information visit our websites: www.fordlibrarymuseum.gov

www.fordlibrarymuseum.gov/library/guides/vietnam.asp

www.archives.gov

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