Ford addresses impact of Vietnam

By Jeannie Baumann

and Hanna LoPatin

Daily Staff Reporters

Former President Gerald Ford visited campus Friday to host a conference on the effects of the Vietnam War during the last 25 years and to formally announce the declassification of nearly 40,000 documents from the National Security Council to be handed over to the Ford Library on North Campus.

Ford, a University alum, spoke to the audience about his presidency during the final days of the Vietnam War and the rescue of U.S. troops from Saigon.

"For me, April 1975 was the cruelest month," Ford said. "I still grieve for those who were unable to be rescued. I still mourn for the 2,500 American soldiers who to this day remain unaccounted for."

Ford said the documents covered "every segment of the conflict in Vietnam, from the Paris Peace Accords, to the tumultuous final hours inside our Saigon Embassy."

"History is best served by providing the widest, earliest possible access to official documentation," Ford said.

The conference consisted of three panels addressing, "America and the World," "The Presidency" and "Politics and the Media."

The first panel, moderated by Director of the Eisenhower Center Douglas Brinkley, discussed the importance of public opinion in a war.

Panelist John Marsh, secretary of the Army to President Ronald Reagan, said "if America's going to war, he better take the American people with him."

Vietnam veteran Mary Bailey said she was disappointed that the panel did not discuss humanitarian aid as an alternative to war in future situations resembling Vietnam.

"I sent a lot of boys to heaven," said Bailey, who worked as a nurse in 1968. "If we can destroy people, we can also help build."

Ford came up from his seat during the discussion to address the Paris Peace Accords, which marked the end of U.S. involvement in the war and called for the release of U.S. prisoners.

"It was a deal that on the surface looked like a good solution," he said. "The North Vietnamese violated every single provision of the Paris Accord. We believed they were going to do everything they said they would and we got screwed."

Panel member Brent Scowcroft, national security adviser to presidents Ford and George Bush, gave praise to the 38th president.

"Ford did a good job of healing this country," he said. "We had the Vietnam War with Watergate ... the people were disappointed, bitter, hatred abounded, a little after two years later the American people had forgotten about it."

The panel on the presidency emphasized the distrust of Washington that has been accumulated since the Vietnam War and the Watergate scandal.

"Our presidents were our kings, symbolically," White House correspondent Lou Cannon said. "This has been lost in the Clinton presidency, it's been lost in the (Lyndon Johnson) presidency.

Cannon said electing a female president is the only way to restore faith into the White House. "My hope is that we're going to see a woman as president of the United States because I think there is an impulse to see women as reliable and as a restoration of moral character," he said.

But the panelists commended Ford's bi-partisanship efforts. "He treated people as adversaries and not enemies," said Roger Porter, former presidential adviser.

Ford sat on the final panel, which addressed politics and the media.

The panel pitted Ford and former U.S. Sen. Eugene McCarthy against political journalist James Cannon and Pulitzer prize winning journalist Haynes Johnson discussing the effect the media had on the Vietnam War.

"I'm not sure American public opinion will ever support another war if they see it on television," Cannon said.

Panelists compared the openness of the Vietnam War to the rigid control journalists were placed under for the Gulf War.

Ford complained of the inconsistencies of war coverage today. The United States is bombing Saddam Hussein daily, Ford said, "and I can't find in any newspaper any daily account of what's going on."

University Regent David Brandon (R-Ann Arbor) said the day's events were phenemonal.

Brandon attended the University during the 1970s. "Now with the passing of time, we can look at those events far more introspectively and objective. The mistakes we made an how we can use that knowledge to make better decisions in the future."

Outside of the Michigan League, where the conference was held, members of the Graduate Action Alliance were joined by members of the Students of Color Coalition and the Ann Arbor Native American community in protest of Ford, who was a member of Michigamua as a senior at the University.

The SCC has been protesting the actions of the senior society Michigamua since it took over the group's meeting space in the Michigan Union tower in February, citing the group's use of Native American rituals as offensive.

"We want (Ford) to know his past isn't as pretty as he thinks it is," GAA member Irfan Nooruddin said.

JOANNA PAINE/Daily

Former President Gerald Ford speaks with former Sen. Eugene McCarthy on the Vietnam War in the Michigan League on Friday.