For many Americans, President Gerald Ford was the genial accident of history who controversially pardoned his Watergate-tarnished predecessor, presided over the fall of Saigon, and became a punching bag on Saturday Night Live. Yet as Richard Norton Smith reveals in a book full of surprises, Ford was an underrated leader whose tough decisions and personal decency look better with the passage of time. Drawing on hundreds of interviews and thousands of documents, Smith recreates Ford's hardscrabble childhood in Michigan, his early anti-establishment politics and lifelong love affair with the former Betty Bloomer, whose impact on American culture he predicted would outrank his own. As president, Ford guided the nation through its worst Constitutional crisis since the Civil War and broke the back of the most severe economic downturn since the Great Depression--accomplishing both with little fanfare or credit (at least until 2001 when the JFK Library gave him its prestigious Profile in Courage Award in belated recognition of the Nixon pardon). Less coda than curtain raiser, Ford's administration bridged the Republican pragmatism of Eisenhower and Nixon and the more doctrinaire conservatism of Ronald Reagan. His introduction of economic deregulation would transform the American economy, while his embrace of the Helsinki Accords hastened the collapse of the Soviet Union. Illustrated with sixteen pages of black-and-white photos, this definitive biography, a decade in the making, will change history's views of a man whose warning about presidential arrogance ("God help the country") is more relevant than ever.

Introduction: A capacity for surprise -- Prologue: Seven days in June -- Part I: Junior, 1912-1950. Secrets -- Luck and pluck -- Yale -- The view from the bridge -- Betty -- Time for a change -- Part II: Everybody's friend, 1950-1972. A modern Republican -- The middle of the road -- The congressman's congressman -- The Warren Commission -- Holding the line -- The good soldier -- Part III: The replacement, June 1972-October 1974. Ahead of the curve -- "The worst job I ever had" -- "My God, this is going to change our whole life" -- Change and continuity -- The pardon -- Clearing the decks -- Part IV: Riding the tiger, October 1974-December 1976. "Run over by history" -- A president in the making -- The cruelest month -- Starting over -- The dangerous summer -- "The cat has nine lives" -- The road to Kansas City -- I'm feeling good about America -- Part V: When is this retirement going to start? 1976-2006. Do what you can -- Lights in a tree -- Epilogue: "God help the country".