Thread: Carter a 'disaster,' Reagan overrated: Ford

I love dirty laundry.

GRAND RAPIDS, Mich. - In 25 years of interviews with his hometown paper that could only be released upon his death, former President Gerald Ford once called Jimmy Carter a "disaster" who ranked alongside Warren Harding, and said Ronald Reagan received far too much credit for ending the Cold War.


"It makes me very irritated when Reagan's people pound their chests and say that because we had this big military buildup, the Kremlin collapsed," Ford told The Grand Rapids Press.
Ford contended his own negotiation of the Helsinki Accords on human rights did more to win the Cold War than Reagan's buildup.

Ford, who died Dec. 26 at age 93, considered John F. Kennedy overrated and Bill Clinton average. He admired George H.W. Bush's handling of the Persian Gulf War and had mixed opinions of Carter, who defeated Ford in 1976.

In 1981, he said: "I think Jimmy Carter would be very close to Warren G. Harding."But two years later, he praised Carter's performance on the Panama Canal treaty, China and the Middle East.

The Associated Press

Disagree about Reagan but true about JFK, Clinton, and Carter