ABSTRACT
The inauguration of President Gerald R. Ford brought a measure of political and psychological relief to Washington from the traumas of the final months of the Richard Milhous Nixon presidency. Many observers considered Ford a mediocre figure who was likely to further reduce public esteem for the executive branch, which had already declined markedly as a result of Vietnam and Watergate. Henry Kissinger, both as a Harvard professor and an adviser to Governor Nelson Rockefeller in the 1950s and 1960s, had vigorously propounded the need for restoring the bipartisan cooperation in foreign policy that had characterized the immediate postwar years. Official recognition of the need for a strategic change toward Latin America was long overdue. The mood of discontent had for years been hovering in the background like Banquo's ghost, concealed from the US public by the loud controversy over Vietnam and other period distractions.
