As an honest, hard-working, and amiable man, Gerald Ford did the best he could as president. Unfortunately, his best wasn't great. Although he had been a college football star and a leader in Congress, he developed an undeserved reputation as a not-too-coordinated, not-to-bright guy. Falling down a flight of stairs, hitting a spectator with a ball during a golf tournament, and occasionally misspeaking didn't help.

Ford's pardon of Nixon angered many Americans, who felt the former president should not have escaped facing the justice system. But even without the Watergate hangover, 1975 was not a great time to be president, for Ford or anyone.

In late April 1975, the communists completed their takeover in Vietnam. American diplomats scrambled onto escape helicopters from the roofs of buildings near the U.S. Embassy in Saigon, with the whole world watching from living room televisions. Most of the rest of Indochina had already fallen under communist control or fell soon after. President Eisenhower's "domino theory" had come true.