Gerald Who?

       Who is Gerald Ford, the man who, if Richard Milhous Nixon has his way, will follow in the footsteps of Spiro Agnew to become the next Vice president (no pun intended) of the United States-who is he?

     He is, first, the man who has been elected to the House of Representatives since 1948 by an arch-conservative district in Grand Rapids. Michigan. Ford has never once, in his quarter of a century career in the House, betrayed the interests of the lily-white reactionaries back home in Kent County, and consequently, he has always been their darling.

      Ford is the man who fought tooth and nail in the House to defeat all bussing measures and who, back in Grand Rapids, personally endorsed a campaign there to close down the one all black high school in the city and portion its student body out into all white schools where the blacks would be relegated to the position of isolated minorities.

       In 1964, Ford was one of the principal backers of a bill that would have made made prayer mandatory in all public schools in the nation, and called his Democratic opponent on the measure, Representative Emmanuel Celler, a "godless communist."

       All during the bloody Vietnam intervention, Ford was one of the most strident hawks in Washington. His public stance was that we should remain in conflict with the Vietnamese people and "fight on for an honorable peace."

      Above all, Gerald Ford is a yes man, a Mr. Me Too, to Richard Nixon and, as such, is a man that Mr. Nixon is favorably impressed with. Every legislative bill which the Nixon administration has pushed, has had Gerald Ford for a champion. Should Nixon be impeached, Ford is a man whom the President could count on to carry on in the Nixon tradition.

     Gerald Ford is the white, upper middle class republican male who stands in line to be our next vice president, possibly the next President of the United States. Haven't we been here before?

             ---Mary Wreford