ABSTRACT
Gerald R. Ford 's public record of legislative accomplishments is modest. He served in the House for almost twenty-four years, nine as minority leader. He served well, but as a workhorse, never as a show horse. Ever optimistic, Ford calculated that if his friend Richard M. Nixon should be nominated in 1968, the party could win not only the White House but enough new House seats—thirty-one was the magic number—to make Ford Speaker. In a parallel tragedy, the US attorney in Baltimore learned that Vice President Spiro T. Agnew had been taking bribes, including at least one he accepted in the White House itself. The new president, Lyndon B. Johnson, brought into the White House his commanding energy and his own agenda. Despite President Johnson's great legislative successes in domestic programs during the first year of his full term, there was one issue on which the opposition to Johnson's policies was ominous and increasing: Vietnam.
