Betty Ford: First Lady

by Lisa McCubbin

  The article went on to describe the controversy she’d stirred up, and that while people didn’t always agree with her, “we couldn’t help but love you for the way you were making us feel again.” Clabes wrote about how Betty was obviously a devoted mother and loving wife—“you kissed and hugged your husband for all the world to see”—and yet she was her own person, always expressing her own mind.

  “You made us proud, Betty Ford . . . it was we who prayed for you when we learned of your pending mastectomy. But it was you who gave us strength. You were open, forthright, unashamed, courageous—giving hope to thousands of women who had been through that hell, saving countless others from a similar fate.”

  The article reminded readers of Betty dancing the bump with Tony Orlando and the “Betty Ford for President” buttons. “We’ll miss your unrehearsed laugh, your warmth, your steadying influence . . . at the time when we needed you most, you were almost too good to be true. But that’s the best part of all. We did believe again, and you didn’t let us down.”

  The day before the inauguration, Betty realized this would be her last opportunity to say goodbye to the White House employees and staff who had, for the past two and a half years, day in and day out, made her life so tolerable, so easy, and, if she really thought about it, some of the best years she’d ever had.

  Photographers David Kennerly and Eddie Adams from Time, who was doing a piece on President Ford’s last day in office, were walking around with Betty and a few of her staff members as she poked her head into offices, saying goodbye. It was all very informal.

  “We walked by the Cabinet Room, which has always been—or had been certainly up until that point—a very male domain,” Kennerly recalled.

  Suddenly Betty stopped and, with a look of mischief, said, “I’ve always wanted to dance on the Cabinet Room table.”

  Kennerly was the only one in that little group who didn’t think she was kidding.

  “Well, Mrs. Ford,” he said, “this is your last chance.”

  She took her shoes off, and hopped up onto the table. “She was very fragile looking, but as a former dancer, she was extremely agile,” Kennerly remembered.

  Taking her place in the center of the table, in one fluid movement, she crossed her right leg over the left, foot flexed standing on the toe, just as her left hand went to her hip, and her right arm stretched to the ceiling. It was a pose rehearsed over a lifetime, prepared for this spontaneous finale.

  David Kennerly captured it in three or four short clicks, and then Betty Ford brushed her hands together and said, “I think that’ll about wrap it up for this place.”

  Inauguration Day, 1977

  The schedule for Inauguration Day was planned nearly to the second, and on this day, Betty knew she couldn’t be late. They’d set an alarm, but Betty and Jerry both awoke at dawn. They began the morning with what had become their normal routines: Jerry eating his breakfast in the dining room as he read the newspaper, while Betty took hers in the sitting room. Jerry knew that Betty didn’t like to talk before ten o’clock if she “had any choice in the matter,” and today, of all days, was one in which they both respected the other’s need to be alone in thought.

  The first order of the day was to greet the Carters at the White House for coffee before the ride to the Capitol, and Betty was anxious to get it over with. The tradition for the outgoing president and first lady to host the couple that will be moving into the White House later the same day has got to be one of the most awkward, and emotional, social situations there is—especially when your successors have beaten you in a hard-fought campaign. But both Betty and her husband were the gracious hosts they’d always been. “We were all human beings, civilized, and the thing you want to do is be as pleasant as possible,” she wrote, and although she smiled for the obligatory photos, it was strained, and later, she would not be able to recall a word that was said.

  When it was time to go, Betty put on her fur coat and walked arm in arm with her husband, still the president of the United States for one more hour, out the door to the North Portico. Pasting on yet another smile as they walked through the sea of photographers, she tried not to think about the fact that this was the last time they’d walk out these doors. Their life in the White House was over.

  President Ford and President-elect Carter rode together to the Capitol in the presidential limousine, with the Secret Service in the follow-up car directly behind them. Third in line came Betty and Rosalynn Carter in their own car.

  “I’m sure her thoughts are as deep and varied as mine, but, like most people, we don’t express them,” Mrs. Carter wrote in her memoir. Instead, they chatted about Camp David, where the Fords had just spent their last weekend.

  “The food is so delicious there,” Betty said. “I’m going to have to go on a diet.”

  She was gracious, but counting the minutes until the torturous obligation was over.

  As they came out the west side of the Capitol, Betty looked out at the mass of people gathered at the bottom of the steps, cheering and clapping, and that’s when it hit hardest. She waved, forcing a smile. And then, as she and Jerry walked down the steps, their hands intertwined, it was all she could do to keep the tears from pouring out. It was so difficult. It just hurt.

  “All our married life was being left there,” she wrote. “We were married, we went to Washington, looked for a place to live and found it, our children were born there, Jerry’s twenty-eight years of work had been there,” and now she felt like “the whole thing had just gone down the drain.”

  PART FOUR

  BETTY FORD, AFTER THE WHITE HOUSE

  Just as suddenly as Betty had become first lady, in an instant, that title, that role, was gone. Now what? What do you do after you’ve reached such a pinnacle? She was fifty-nine years old, moving to the next phase of her life, looking forward to retirement with the husband she loved and adored. Even though they’d lost the election, Betty and Jerry were proud of the way they’d conducted themselves in their short time in the White House, and at this point in their lives, with book deals and television deals, they could enjoy a lifestyle that had never been possible before.

  But something was wrong. Something was terribly wrong. Everyone agreed: “Something has to be done about Mother.”

  Few outside the Ford family were privy to what happened; how it all unfolded. But ultimately, Betty’s “problem” would become public.

  It is a testament to Betty Ford’s resilience, her deep-seated strength and determination, combined with the sincere love and commitment of her devoted husband, that the outcome would become one of her greatest achievements.

  20

  * * *

  “Kiss Today Goodbye”

  Along with a full Secret Service detail, four staff members personally chosen by President and Mrs. Ford moved with them to Rancho Mirage, California: President Ford’s military aide, Bob Barrett; Greg Willard from the White House Advance Office; and Annie Grier and Joy Chiles from the Press Office. The four of them had been working tirelessly in the eighty days between the election and Inauguration Day to facilitate the Fords’ transition from the White House to their postpresidency life in the desert. There were myriad administrative complexities: organizing presidential papers; coordinating staff and facilities authorized by the General Services Administration; and sorting through millions of pages of documents and mementos to be preserved for the presidential library. Add to all this the personal aspects: boxing up clothes, furniture, and personal belongings not only from the White House but also things that had been put in storage when they moved out of 514 Crown View Drive two and a half years earlier.

  After a few days in Pebble Beach, where President Ford played in the Bing Crosby Pro-Am golf tournament, the Fords flew to Houston for a benefit dinner in memory of famed NFL football coach Vince Lombardi, and finally arrived in Palm Springs on Friday, January 28. Plans were under way to build a home in Rancho Mirage, but in the interim, Jerry and Betty moved into a partially fu
rnished $375,000 house they leased from Emily DeWare, a Texas heiress, in the exclusive gated hillside community of Thunderbird Heights. Some of the Fords’ furniture and a few personal effects went into the house, while the Secret Service set up a command post in a portion of the garage, surrounded by boxes of the Fords’ belongings piled from floor to ceiling.

  The four staff members rented a bungalow on the Thunderbird Country Club grounds, just down the hill from the DeWare house. It had two tiny rooms with a kitchenette in the middle. For the next several weeks, the kitchenette served as the “Office of the Thirty-Eighth President of the United States.” It was so incongruous that, at times, the staff members would pause, look at one another, and burst out laughing: Wow, what a change from 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue! But if the change was sudden and drastic for them, it was even more so for Betty and the president. Within just a few days, the starkness of it all became palpable.

  The Fords were living in the DeWare house on a narrow, isolated street. They couldn’t just walk down to the clubhouse and have lunch. They had to be driven to go anywhere—and that meant being driven by the Secret Service. They had a few friends in the desert and would attend sporadic black-tie galas. Occasionally, people would invite them over for dinner, but having the former president and first lady to dinner was an event—it wasn’t like the informal backyard barbecues they’d enjoyed with neighbors on Crown View Drive.

  They hadn’t been in Rancho Mirage much more than a week before President Ford started traveling, while Betty was left to set up house and somehow fill her days. All through February and into March, the president was gone a great deal. There were speeches at universities, corporate boards trying to entice him to join, and more invitations to charity events and golf tournaments than he could possibly accept. It was not the retirement Betty Ford had envisioned.

  “Those of us on the staff immediately recognized how lonely it was for them—especially for Mrs. Ford,” Greg Willard recalled. “It was inescapable how blasted lonely it was out there. And, as their staff, we felt this odd sense of responsibility to somehow fix it. Unfortunately, there simply wasn’t a good fix.”

  Everyone around the Fords, even the Secret Service agents, was feeling it. They all wanted to get Betty out and about. On one occasion, with the president away on an overnight trip, Greg stayed back in Rancho Mirage and stopped by the DeWare house to see Betty.

  “Mrs. Ford, a bunch of us have been talking about this new movie A Star Is Born with Barbra Streisand and Kris Kristofferson. Come on and go with us to see it tonight.”

  “Yeah! That sounds fun! I’ll go!” she said.

  Greg bought bags of popcorn for everyone, and as the group sat there in the darkness, he kept reflecting on how remarkable the situation was. Just a few months ago, when she was first lady, living in the White House, there were so many invitations; so many people who wanted every moment of her time. Now here she was, sitting in a dark movie theater, surrounded by only her husband’s personal aide and her Secret Service agents. Yesterday’s news.

  The Fords had been in Rancho Mirage about six weeks when an opportunity for a trip to New York City popped up. The Eisenhower Exchange Fellowship had asked Jerry to give a speech to a group of trustees and major contributors. Both Jerry and Betty were in contract negotiations with NBC for some television appearances, and several top publishing houses were bidding for their memoirs. It was an ideal time to meet with the various parties to iron out the details.

  A year earlier, during a campaign stop in New York City, Betty had attended a performance of Broadway’s latest hit A Chorus Line. Directed and choreographed by Michael Bennett, the show was an emotional glimpse into the struggles and triumphs of a group of dancers auditioning for a Broadway musical, and with its powerful music by Marvin Hamlisch, it had gone on to win nine Tony Awards, including Best Musical of 1976. When Betty first saw the show, she was flooded with memories of those heady days in New York City when she, too, had visions of becoming a professional dancer. She had been wanting to see it again, and for Jerry to see it, and now was the perfect chance.

  Betty called the staff office to see if tickets to the show could be arranged for her and Jerry. She then asked, “Who’s going on the trip with us?”

  “Annie Grier and I are scheduled to work the trip,” Greg Willard replied.

  “Well, then, let’s get four tickets. You and Annie are going with us. You two need to see it.”

  In New York, Harper & Row Publishing offered Betty and Jerry a joint contract for an estimated $1 million to write their memoirs, separately but equally. No previous president and first lady had ever made a similar two-book deal that placed their experiences as public figures on an equal basis. Trevor Armbrister, an author and former Saturday Evening Post reporter, would help President Ford with his book, while Betty selected Chris Chase, a female freelance writer suggested by the publisher to assist with writing her autobiography. Betty’s book was scheduled to be published before Jerry’s, in the fall of 1978.

  The evening of Monday, March 21, the sold-out crowd at the Shubert Theatre was getting restless. It was eight minutes past showtime, the house lights were still on, and there was a group of prime middle orchestra seats unoccupied in the otherwise full theater. Suddenly there was a commotion in the back. The entire audience turned to see what was going on. As soon as they saw President and Mrs. Ford walking down the aisle, pandemonium erupted throughout the theater.

  Everyone stood up and started cheering. “Bravo! Bravo!”

  President Ford smiled and nodded, clearly appreciating the raucous ovation. But it was Betty who was taking it all in—her face was filled with pure, unmitigated joy. You could see it in her eyes; it was sheer happiness. After weeks of quiet loneliness, to have this kind of reception was like a shot of adrenaline to her soul.

  People were reaching out their hands, and while the agents tried to gently push them back, Betty and Jerry graciously offered their hands in return as they made their way down the aisle. As soon as they were seated, with their two guests on either side of them, the agents took their seats in the row behind.

  Finally, the lights went down, and the show began.

  Onstage, a group of dancers, some dressed in leotards, others in street clothes, were following instructions during an audition: “Five, six, seven, eight . . .”

  From the moment the dancers came onstage, it was as if Betty was reliving those months in New York City in her twenties when she was one of those idealistic girls on the stage; when her only dream was to be chosen by Martha Graham as one of her principal dancers.

  Betty could no more hold still in her seat than she could not breathe. As the dancers glided across the stage, stood on their toes, and kicked their legs up to their foreheads, her own feet, in designer heels, pointed and flexed as if she were silently dancing the numbers right along with them.

  Greg and Annie glanced at Betty from time to time and couldn’t help but smile at the glee on her face. For six long weeks, those around the Fords had wondered, How do we fix this? How can we cure her loneliness? For this night, at least, the answer was right here at the Shubert Theatre on West Forty-Fourth Street. It was as if this play had been written for her, about her.

  She sat there mesmerized. The story line was about a group of dancers in their twenties and thirties, sharing the heartbreaks of their childhoods and how dance had saved them, baring their souls to the director whose decision would change the course of their lives.

  One girl sang how dance was her escape; how going to the ballet made her forget her worries. Betty listened intently to every lyric, and every so often she’d turn to look at her husband to make sure he was enjoying it as much as she’d hoped he would. He was. About halfway through the show, a female dancer named Val began singing a song called “Dance Ten, Looks Three,” in which she described with shocking frankness how she had undergone plastic surgery to enhance her “tits and ass” in order to get more jobs.

  There were quiet gasps in the thea
ter. Everyone knew President and Mrs. Ford were in the audience, and they weren’t sure how this was going to go over, given the former first lady’s mastectomy. The president sat there, watching, listening. Suddenly Betty started slapping her leg in time to the rhythm, laughing, and moving her shoulders up and down. It put Jerry immediately at ease, and when he broke into a beaming smile, the rest of the audience relaxed.

  When a line in the song referenced how the new breasts had enhanced the girl’s sex life, Betty turned to Jerry, laughing, with a naughty glint in her eye. She loved it! And she loved that it made her husband blush.

  Nearly two hours in, at the very end of the musical, the choreographer asked the dancers, “If today were the day you had to stop dancing, how would you feel?”

  There was a pause, and actress Priscilla Lopez, as Diana Morales, her voice pure and poignant, began singing, “What I Did for Love.” Betty reached over and clasped her husband’s hand, tears welling in her eyes as the opening lyrics began.

  “Kiss today goodbye . . .”

  It felt as if she were singing to Betty and Jerry; as if the song had been written just for them, just for this moment. The past three years had been an emotional roller coaster. They’d landed in the White House—not what they’d wanted at all, but they’d thrived, and Betty had loved it. And then they’d worked so hard to be reelected, only to lose in a heartbreaking defeat. She was almost afraid to look at her husband, for fear they’d both break down.

  The song was all about remembering what the dancers had been through, how they’d danced their hearts out, purely out of love, and looking back, they had no regrets.

  Betty and Jerry turned and looked into each other’s eyes, fighting the tears, as their hands squeezed so tightly, it was as if they were embracing.