In that year, Spiro Agnew resigned. Agnew had been vice president since January 1969, but questions about his financial ethics forced him to leave the office. Under the watchful eyes of the American public, and of Congress, President Nixon had to appoint a new vice president. The new VP had to be able to undergo the most careful investigations and be able to show that he was free of any hint of scandalous behavior.
Despite the detailed scrutiny of both government and media, Gerald Ford proved to have a spotless record regarding both public and private behavior.
Once he was confirmed by the both houses of Congress and became VP December 1973, he found that his work would be challenging, as historian Thomas DeFrank writes:
As vice president, Ford was faced with one of the more daunting assignments any American politician has ever confronted. He was determined to remain loyal to his president, the old friend and former congressional colleague who’d made him VP. He was also intent on staying true to his conscience, and much of what he saw unfolding at the White House troubled him. More than anything else, he was also desperate to do everything in his power to hold his beloved Republican Party together amid the wreckage of Watergate.
As VP, Ford was immensely popular with Americans. He was, in fact, much more popular than Nixon at the time. It is awkward for a vice president to be more popular than the president for whom he works.
Realizing that he would eventually, and probably soon, be president, Ford was careful to preserve his connection to the ordinary American citizens by not supporting Nixon too much, as Thomas DeFrank notes:
Every vice president struggles under the yoke of playing second fiddle, but Watergate made the part far trickier for Ford. Even in the beginning, when he still believed Nixon was innocent, Ford was smart enough to realize there was a reasonable chance he might become president anyway. If it happened, he’d need to come before a wounded and troubled nation as the Great Healer. By defending Nixon too forcefully, he risked being tarred as an Agnewesque polarizer, diminishing his capacity to reunite the nation
During his brief time — less than one year — as vice president, the public, the media, and the other leaders in government uniformly perceived Ford as honest, ethical, and decent.
This would become vitally important when he became president in August 1974.
