Betty Ford’s Candor: The “60 Minutes” Interview

Jul 31

On July 21, 1975, first lady of the United States Betty Ford sat down with CBS News’ Morley Safer in the White House solarium to tape an interview with the “60 Minutes” television program. It was broadcast on August 10, her first exclusive interview with a television reporter since her husband had assumed the presidency on the resignation of Richard Nixon in August the year before. By this point, Ford had developed a reputation for candor, and her interview with Safer did not disappoint.

Born Elizabeth Anne Bloomer in Chicago in 1918, Ford was the third child of her homemaker mother and travelling salesman father. She grew up in Grand Rapids, Michigan, where her mother enrolled her at age 8 in dance school. By 14, she was teaching dance and modeling clothes, while also working at a home for disabled children. Her father died when she was 16, and her mother began working as a real estate agent to support the family. After graduating high school, Ford continued studying dance and working as a model.

In 1942, she married an insurance salesman, and the couple moved frequently. Concluding within a few years that her husband, who was in poor health, was a workaholic and would not make a good father, she filed for divorce. When he collapsed, she paused the divorce for several years and cared for and supported him before finalizing it. In 1947, she was introduced to Gerald Ford, a World War II Veteran and Yale Law graduate who was then running for US Congress, and they married the next year.

The central role politics would play in their shared life was presaged on their honeymoon, when after attending a University of Michigan football game (a team her new husband had captained), they travelled to a campaign rally for Republican presidential nominee Thomas Dewey. They later had four children together, Michael, Jack, Steve, and Susan. Because the congressional campaign was successful and Ford eventually served 25 years in the house, becoming minority leader, they raised their children in the DC suburbs.

Because her husband was so committed to national service, Ford bore the lion’s share of parenting responsibilities, also devoting considerable time to her husband’s career. By 1964, she had developed neck and back pain that was treated with prescription pain medications, to which she ultimately became addicted. A year later, she suffered a nervous breakdown and began seeing a psychiatrist, but did not yet take steps to address her growing dependence on pain medication and alcohol. Amid her difficulties, she found hope in her husband’s 1974 declaration that he would not run for Congress again.

Ford’s hopes to return to private life in Grand Rapids were thwarted when her husband was chosen to replace resigned Vice President Spiro Agnew in 1973, followed by his elevation to the presidency on Nixon’s resignation. In contrast to her predecessor, Pat Nixon, who maintained a low profile during her husband’s presidency, Ford became the most politically active and expressive presidential spouse since Eleanor Roosevelt.

This outspokenness was reflected in her 60 Minutes interview. She opened with an admission that when her husband told her they would be going to the White House, she responded, “Okay, I will go. But I’m going as myself. It’s too late to change my pattern. And if they don’t like it, then they’ll just have to throw me out.” Instead of pretending to be someone she was not, Ford had learned over a quarter century as the wife of a prominent congressman that she had to be open and honest.

Safer inquired whether she ever had any doubts about her husband’s fidelity. She responded, “I have perfect faith in my husband. But I am always glad to see him enjoy a pretty girl. Only when he stops looking will I begin to worry. Besides, he doesn’t really have time for outside entertainment. I keep him busy.” Asked how she had handled her health problems in the 1960s, Ford responded that her psychiatrist helped her see how important it is to take time out for oneself.

Safer then suggested that the higher a woman’s husband rises in politics, the less outspoken the wife becomes. To the contrary, Ford responded, she needed to speak out on issues that pertain to women. On the subject of women’s liberation, for example, she described the liberated woman as one who “is happy doing what she’s doing, whether it’s a job or a housewife, it doesn’t make a bit of difference. Just so she inwardly feels that she is happy and she is liberated.” She expressed her support for the Equal Rights Amendment, saying, “I feel that it should pass in our bicentennial year. What could be greater than that?”

Ford felt that her advocacy had made a difference. For example, her husband had appointed a woman to his cabinet, and she expressed the hope that she would help to get a woman on the Supreme Court. Yet she had also expressed views that generated considerable opposition, such as support for the court’s Roe v. Wade abortion decision. Her goal, she said, was “to bring it out of the backwoods and put it in the hospitals, where it belongs.” Affirmed Ford, “I thought it was a great, great decision.”

Safer then asked if she would be surprised if her children tried marijuana. No, she said, but if they did, “I would have detected it. And immediately, I would have done something about it.” “Would the young Betty Bloomer have tried it?” Safer asked. “I probably would when I was growing up at that age, because I would have been interested to see what the effect would have been. But I never would have gone into it as a habit or anything like that. It’s the type of thing young people have to experience, like your first beer.”

When queried about her psychiatric history and her openness about her breast cancer, a term hardly ever printed in the newspapers of the day, she responded that “The publicity around my cancer operation saved a lot of people’s lives.” She continued, “I thought that there are women all over the country like me, and if I don’t make this public, then their lives will be in jeopardy. I think it did a great deal for women, as far as the cancer problem is concerned.”

There is little doubt that Ford’s candor accounted for much of her popularity with the American public. Her approval ratings, often as high as three-quarters of respondents, were frequently higher than her husband’s, and she often topped polls of America’s most admired women during and after her husband’s presidency. In a subsequent interview, she summed up her outlook on adversity as follows: “I believe that we are all here to help each other and that our individual lives have purposes. My illness turned out to have a very special purpose – helping to save other lives, and I am grateful for what I was able to do.”