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Gerald Rudolph Ford, Jr. (July 14, 1913 – December 26, 2006) was the 38th President (1974–1977), and 40th Vice President (1973–1974) of the United States. Ford was the first person appointed to the vice presidency under the terms of the 25th Amendment. Upon succession to the presidency, Ford became the only person to hold that office without having been elected either President or Vice President. Prior to becoming Vice President, he served for over eight years as the Republican Minority Leader of the House of Representatives as a representative from Michigan's 5th congressional district.
The Ford administration saw the withdrawal of American forces from the Vietnam War, the execution of the Helsinki Accords amid the Cold War and the continuing spectre of inflation and recession. Ford came under intense criticism for granting a preemptive pardon to President Richard Nixon for his role in the Watergate scandal, and was subsequently defeated by Democrat Jimmy Carter in the 1976 presidential election. However, this act would later come to be seen in a different light. For his pardon of Nixon, Caroline Kennedy and her uncle, former pardon critic Senator Ted Kennedy, awarded the John F. Kennedy Profile in Courage Award to Ford.