President Gerald Ford finishes the 2nd of 2 very bad weeks by being shot at again, this time by a San Francisco housewife. It doesn't work this time, either.

At noon on August 9, 1974, Vice President Gerald Ford was sworn in as president of the United States following Richard Nixon's resignation. Ford, who had been appointed vice president after Spiro Agnew's resignation in 1973, was the first president in U.S. history to come to the office by appointment rather than election. With the American economy suffering through severe inflation and an energy crisis, and with public faith in the White House eroded after the Watergate scandal, President Ford had his work cut out for him. In one of his first acts as chief executive he pardoned Richard Nixon for any offenses he may have committed while in office, an act that caused outrage in many quarters. To deal with the economic recession, Ford proposed tax cuts, curbs on government spending, and heavy taxation on imported oil, but he found little support in the Democratic Congress. In his first two years in office he vetoed over forty bills sent to him from Capitol Hill. In 1976, he narrowly won the Republican presidential nomination over former California governor Ronald Reagan, but in November was defeated by Democratic challenger Jimmy Carter.

On September 16, 1974, President Gerald Ford pardoned his disgraced predecessor Richard Nixon for any crimes he committed or may have committed while in office. Nixon had resigned as president on August 9 after evidence of his direct involvement in the Watergate scandal was revealed and his impeachment became a certainty. His successor, Vice President Ford, was the first president to come to the office through appointment rather than election. Ford had replaced Spiro Agnew as vice president only eight months before, when the latter was forced to resign in an independent scandal. After taking the oath of office of August 9, President Ford spoke to the nation in a television address, declaring, "My fellow Americans, our long national nightmare is over.? His September 16 pardon of Nixon caused a national uproar, but Ford later defended the action before Congress, explaining that he wanted to end the national divisions created by the Watergate scandal. Decades later, the John F. Kennedy Library Foundation presented its 2001 Profile in Courage Award to Gerald Ford for his 1974 pardon of Nixon. In pardoning Nixon, the foundation said, Ford placed his love of country ahead of his own political future and brought needed closure to the divisive Watergate affair. Ford left politics after losing the 1976 presidential election to Democrat Jimmy Carter.

President Gerald R. Ford was the first president to come to the nation's highest office by appointment rather than election. Appointed President Richard Nixon's vice president in 1973 after Spiro Agnew resigned in disgrace, he became president on August 9, 1974, when the Watergate scandal forced Nixon's resignation. With the American economy suffering through severe inflation and an energy crisis, and with public faith in the White House eroded after Watergate, President Ford had his work cut out for him. In one of his first acts as chief executive he pardoned Nixon for any offenses he committed or may have committed while in office, an act that caused outrage in many quarters. To deal with the economic recession, Ford proposed tax cuts, curbs on government spending, and heavy taxation on imported oil, but he found little support in the Democratic Congress. In his first two years in office he vetoed over 40 bills sent to him from Capitol Hill. In 1976, he narrowly won the Republican presidential nomination over former California governor Ronald Reagan, but in November he was defeated by Democratic challenger Jimmy Carter in a close election.

On April 21, 1975, Xuan Loc, Saigon's last line of defense against North Vietnamese forces, fell to the Communists. The same day, President Nguyen Van Thieu, leader of South Vietnam since 1967, announced his resignation. Knowing that the Communists would never negotiate with a hard-liner such as a Thieu, the U.S. ambassador in Vietnam had suggested to him that he resign. In his farewell address, Thieu chagrined the United States as ''inhumane,'' and declared, ''You ran away and left us to do the job that you could not.'' President Gerald Ford, speaking of the events from Washington, seemed more distant than his 10,000 miles from Saigon. On April 26, Thieu fled to Taiwan, and on April 27, Communist forces began shelling the South Vietnamese capital. On April 29, U.S. Armed Forces Radio played White Christmas, the signal that ''Option IV,'' the largest helicopter evacuation in history, was underway. Before Saigon's fall on April 30, 50,000 anticommunist Vietnamese were airlifted out of the country, along with the last few Americans remaining. On April 30, less than four hours after the last helicopter left the roof of the American embassy, South Vietnam's president for two days, Duong Van Minh, surrendered unconditionally. North Vietnamese Colonel Bui Tin, presiding over the climax of his nation's thirty-year struggle for unification, remarked, ''You have nothing to fear; between Vietnamese there are no victors and no vanquished. Only the Americans have been defeated.'' The Vietnam War was the longest and most unpopular war in U.S. history, and cost 58,000 American lives.

On November 3, 1975, in a letter to President Gerald Ford, Vice President Nelson Rockefeller announced that he would not seek re-election in 1976. On November 6, at a press conference, he cited the Democratic Congress's lack of cooperation with President Ford in dealing with the nation's severe inflation and energy problems as reason for his decision. One year before, Rockefeller had been appointed to the office of vice president by Ford, who had succeeded to the presidency following Richard Nixon's resignation. Rockefeller, a former four-term governor of New York and the grandson of oil tycoon John D. Rockefeller, Sr., had unsuccessfully sought the Republican presidential nomination in 1960, 1964, and 1968. In 1976, the Republican National Convention chose Senator Robert Dole of Kansas as Ford's running mate in his unsuccessful campaign against Democratic presidential candidate Jimmy Carter. Rockefeller served as vice president until the end of the Ford administration in January of 1977. He died two years later.