Ford and Amnesty NYT Letter and Original

Compare The New York Times letter with the original.

Re “President Gerald R. Ford, Who Led U.S. Out of Watergate Era, Dies at 93” (obituary, Dec. 28): You write: “He had sought to bind up the nation’s wounds as much by instinct as by design. One of his earliest acts, combining courage with forgiveness, was to announce before a convention of the Veterans of Foreign Wars that he favored leniency for Vietnam-era draft resisters.”

With Mr. Ford’s amnesty program, only a paltry 21,800 men out of 350,000 who were eligible were granted clemency. The program ignored the plight of military deserters, who were generally less educated and usually came from less well-off backgrounds than draft resisters.

This must be weighed against the full pardon he granted Mr. Nixon.
Howard Lisnoff
Dec. 28, 2006

http://www.nytimes.com/2006/12/29/opinion/l29ford.html

December 27, 2006


To the Editor:
In “Gerald Ford, 38th President, Dies at 93” (December 27), your writer states, “He had sought to bind up the nation’s wounds as much by instinct as by design. One of his earliest acts, combining courage with forgiveness, was to announce before a convention of Veterans of Foreign Wars that he favored leniency for Vietnam-era draft resisters.”

Mr. Ford’s amnesty program, as it was eventually applied, forced war resisters to swear an oath of allegiance. Only a paltry 21,800 men out of 350,000 who were eligible under the program signed on. The program completely ignored the plight of military deserters, who were generally less educated and usually came from less well-off economic backgrounds than did draft resisters.

All of this must be weighed against the full and free pardon he granted Mr. Nixon who had committed high crimes while in office, including his involvement in the cover up of the Watergate break-in.
Sincerely,
Howard Lisnoff