President Gerald R. Ford

I was still living in England when in September, 1974, President Gerald R. Ford announced his unconditional pardon of Richard Nixon. I had stayed up until the early hours of the morning on many a night avidly watching the Senate Watergate hearings live from Washington, and I was outraged by his decision. Even as an Englishman, I wanted to see Nixon hung, drawn and quartered; shamed and humiliated. President Ford denied me my pound of flesh, my revenge, and I hated him for it.

Listening to this nation reviewing its collective memory about that event and its reaction to it, and arriving at the conclusion that it was in fact an act of great vision, wisdom, clarity, compassion, mercy — and, yes, pragmatism, I am confirmed in my own belief that forgiveness in the end is always the right decision. It is the right decision because it is healing in a way that revenge and retribution can never be, no matter how sweet it might feel at the outset when emotion is running high.

The Amish people in Pennsylvania, who most people had, until recently, dismissed as simply quaint, showed us all how to do it and, quite frankly, shamed us all. When they suffered the tragic death of ten young girls to a deranged gunman they not only rallied round the families of the dead girls, but also the family of the killer in the same spirit of love and compassion. In stark contrast to how most Americans, avidly supported by the media, deal with perpetrators and their families, they made it clear that their way, the only way, is to reach out with mercy and forgiveness.

This nation as whole has, I hope, just come to the same realization. Through the death of Gerald Ford, a President we once mocked, we have learned by our own experience that forgiveness is the only answer. It is the only form of ‘closure’ worth having. And we can be grateful to him for showing us that. His courage to do what he felt was the absolute right thing to do at that time, even though he knew that it would cost him the election, is something of which we all wish we were capable. He clearly did it for the country so it could heal Watergate and he could get on with governing the country, but it is my assessment that he also did it from the heart, purely out of a genuine desire to look beyond the crime, see the human being, be merciful and forgive a friend.

It is interesting that coincident with Ford’s death and our meeting with our own erstwhile lack of forgiveness in Nixon’s case, we have had the experience of seeing Saddam Hussein hanged for his crimes. I believe this, too, has made us think once more about what it means to condemn another. He was a monster but as I argued in the previous posting, we don’t really know what his life meant in terms of the bigger picture.

It was the same with Nixon. We will never know, and neither could we comprehend, what the spiritual gift was in Watergate and the part Nixon played in it, but Radical Forgiveness tells that there was one. Once we accept that the hand of God is in everything, we can bring humility and mercy to any situation and say quietly to ourselves, “There but for the Grace of God, go I.” It takes that kind of humility to truly forgive. And, by all accounts, Gerald Ford had it.

Thank you, Mr. President.