Known and Unknown (105 page)

24

We had scheduled a family vacation for the beginning of August 1974. Joyce was determined to have some time together. We learned of President Nixon's imminent resignation from the
International Herald Tribune.

25

When I returned to Washington to serve as chief of staff in 1974, President Ford was determined to keep the White House involved in big issues. The warm and brilliant Dr. Herman Kahn moved seamlessly from discussing economics to nuclear strategy to future trends. Ford's engagement in the discussion might have surprised his critics.

26

With Vice President Nelson Rockefeller, March 1975. The feeling was mutual.

27

On Air Force One with Larry Eagleburger (left), Henry Kissinger (center), and Dick Cheney (right). Serving as White House Chief of Staff was among my most challenging assignments, but it could also be enjoyable.

28

Ford's fine sense of humor kept us all coming back day after day. It appears the President won this tennis match with photographer David Kennerly.

29

President Ford meeting with his advisers on the disastrous economic situation he had inherited (left to right: Bill Simon, Ron Nessen, Dick Cheney, and Alan Greenspan).

30

On his first trip abroad as President, Ford visited Vladivostok in the Soviet Union. His meetings, including this official luncheon with General Secretary Brezhnev and Foreign Minister Gromyko, were held in a former mental health sanitarium.

31

Two assassination attempts in September 1975 added to President Ford's challenges. After the attempt by radical Squeaky Fromme, my longtime secretary, Lee Goodell, took down the President's recollections on our return flight to Washington, D.C.

32

During the second assassination attempt, the bullet from Sarah Jane Moore's pistol passed between the President's head and mine, before hitting the wall of the St. Francis Hotel.

33

My mother, Jeannette, with Joyce, Nick, Marcy, and Valerie at my first swearing-in ceremony as secretary of defense. This is a favorite photograph of the special people in my life.

34

Nick, then eight years old, was taken aback by the nineteen-gun salute at the ceremony, but tried hard not to show it.

35

General-turned-statesman Yitzhak Rabin (left center) succeeded Prime Minister Golda Meir in 1974 to become the first Israeli-born leader of the Jewish state. He impressed me with his patriotism, which was tempered by a realistic understanding of the challenges of the Middle East. Tragically, he was assassinated in 1995.