1974, September 8 – The Oval Office – The White House – Washington, DC – Gerald R. Ford – signing Nixon Pardon – President Gerald R. Ford signs the Nixon Pardon
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WASHINGTON– SEPT 8:President Ford in Bill Timmon’s office at the White House moments after pardoning Richard Nixon, Sept. 8, 1974 (David Hume Kennerly)
The First Lady
Showtime recently announced that The First Lady series is cancelled. Mercifully it only had one season. This will spare other former presidential wives from the historical malpractice visited upon the three women portrayed in the show by creator Aaron Cooley. It will, however, be a crushing disappointment for those waiting for the Jacqueline Kennedy and Melania Trump stories.
I didn’t know that much about Eleanor Roosevelt, and even though I photographed Michelle Obama a few times, had no clue about the innerworkings of her world. Based on this show I’m sure I still don’t.
But I ‘m very well acquainted with Gerald R. Ford and his family thanks to a close friendship with the president, Mrs. Ford, and their children. I was the chief White House photographer with upstairs/downstairs access to the East and West Wings and everywhere in between. I probably spent more time with Mrs. Ford than anyone outside of her family. In this contorted version of Betty Ford’s life she was shown navigating their Alexandria home then later the White House in a cliche-infused-alcoholic haze. Nope, that’s not how it happened. If you want to know the real story read Mrs. Ford's book, "The Times of My Life." She didn't shy away from discussing her battle with pain killers and alcohol, quite the opposite, but she wasn't prancing around 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue plastered.
In their Hollywood imagination Cooley & Co. also drummed up a scenario where Mrs. Ford lectured her husband in their bedroom after he pardoned Richard Nixon. In a fiery and astonishing scene Mrs. Ford says, “You let him off without consequences for his actions. You know that makes us look complicit, that we are part of the coverup.” That was huge. You go strong woman! Give that presidential mate a piece of your first lady’s mind. Great stuff. Except it was 100% false. She in fact was sympathetic to the Nixons who were old family friends. Mrs. Ford was an empathetic human being who felt a deep sadness for former first wife Patricia Nixon. Betty Ford thought her husband had done the right thing, and wholeheartedly supported his decision. But hell, that’s not good television.
When The First Lady team was conjuring up this fantasy, neither creator Cooley nor any of his nine executive producers reached out to the Ford children or anyone else who knew them for input. They didn’t get in touch with me either and I was portrayed in an episode. One of the kids asked me why they didn’t call them for information. I said that they were going to make the show they had in mind and didn't want facts to get in the way of what turned out to be a subpar story badly and erroneously told.
I understand this wasn’t a documentary purporting to tell the real story and I didn’t expect that standard of accuracy. When Viola Davis, who played Michelle Obama in the series, was being interviewed by Leslie Stahl on CBS Sunday Morning she was questioned about the truth of a scene with White House Chief of Staff Rahm Emanuel talking condescendingly to Mrs. Obama. Ms. Davis, who was also an executive producer of the project said, “With Rahm we took some liberties for dramatic purposes.” Indeed they did, and not only with Rahm. No White House chief of staff with half a brain would have done anything like that. Except for Ronald Reagan’s chief Donald Regan, who hung up the phone on First Lady Nancy and was fired shortly after. As Jim Baker who had been Reagan’s previous chief put it, “Hell, that wasn’t a firing offense, it was a hanging offense.”
“Taking liberties” should not be grabbing history by the short hairs and tossing it kicking and screaming off the cliff. There is a professional responsibility in keeping historical drama within a realistic framework, unless of course you are Monty Python. It should have been designated a “fiction based on real characters” and a disclaimer at the beginning of each episode added that said:
The producers of The First Lady apparently had no idea what really went on with these ladies so they just made up the “facts.”
Another fabrication in this saga was portraying Don Rumsfeld, the president's White House chief of staff, and his deputy Dick Cheney as the requisite bad guys out to suppress the president’s “plucky wife” Betty Ford. Nope. Not the way it went down. In one overblown scene, Rumsfeld storms aboard Mrs. Ford's plane before she was about to take off to Atlanta for the funeral of Martin Luther King's mother. In a vaguely racist statement Rumsfeld told her what a bad idea it was for her to do that. Dammit, "I'm Jerry's chief of staff!" Nope. That scene never happened either. At the time, Mrs. Ford was the wife of Vice President Ford, and Rumsfeld was in Europe serving as Nixon’s U.S. Ambassador to NATO. Oops. Great alibi though. He didn't become chief until six weeks after Ford became president. Plus Rumsfeld didn’t call him Jerry after Ford became the chief executive. It was always "Mr. President." Same with Cheney. Same with me. Same with most people.
In another four-Pinocchio moment, the downer boys, Rumsfeld and Cheney, showed up in the Family Residence of the White House on Christmas Eve, 1975. In this depiction the Fords were in the middle of a nice, quiet, private holiday dinner. The downer duo’s mission was to admonish Mrs. Ford for another outspoken moment that they felt was going to hurt “Jerry’s” presidential campaign. Kind of unimaginable that anyone would do something like that on Christmas. They didn't. The Fords weren't even in the White House that night, they were in Vail. I was with them having dinner. Guess what? Neither Cheney nor Rumsfeld interrupted them there either. Another reason why not? Donald Rumsfeld had become Secretary of Defense, was no longer chief of staff, and was running the Pentagon, not trying to screw with Betty Ford's life. Details, details.
A fine young actor Cody Pressley played my character. His scene was based on what happened the day before the Fords left office on January 19, 1977. In real life Mrs. Ford was in the West Wing saying her goodbyes to the staff. We passed the empty Cabinet Room. She peeked in, looked at me with her trademark mischievous grin and said, "You know, I've always wanted to dance on the Cabinet Room table." The former Martha Graham dancer kicked off her shoes, jumped up on the table, and struck a pose that captured her irrepressible personality. She was also symbolically planting the feminist flag right in the middle of a predominantly white male domain. Nothing against Cody, but they had him carrying one of his cameras bandolier-style in a way you couldn’t quickly take a picture. It might work for tourists from Omaha, but not pros in the White House. He was also dressed in a light-colored turtleneck and not wearing a coat and tie. A photo of me and Mrs. Ford from that day by Eddie Adams would have helped the wardrobe department get it right.
Mrs. Ford had given up dancing professionally long ago, but the producers of The First Lady took care of that. Michelle Pfeiffer, who portrayed Mrs. Ford, (Ms. Pfeiffer is the one thing Mrs. Ford would have liked about this series), started dancing around the table. Cody (as me) is taking pictures. President Ford walks into the Room and is “shocked” by the scene but thinks it’s funny. He exits. Two problems. The president didn’t find out about it until 15 years later when I showed him the picture. He exclaimed to his wife, “Betty, you never told me you did that!” She jokingly said, “There a lot of things I never told you, Jerry.”
The second problem is that their version played out in the Roosevelt Room. Another unforced error. All they had to do was look at my relatively well-known photograph of the moment to at least get that right, but hey, that would have involved paying a researcher.
The danger here is that many people who saw this thing will believe that this was how things happened and that they now know the real Betty Ford. They will not. My advice to those who really care about history is to read about the people who made it in their own words or in the words of trusted historians.
The First Lady wasn’t picked up for another season because it was fatally flawed historically, but for the ultimate sin in the entertainment world. It sucked, and toward the end people quit watching it. If you’re making shit up, at least make it interesting. And don’t pretend it’s based on real life.
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David Hume Kennerly named University of Arizona’s First Presidential Scholar
Prolific political photographer David Hume Kennerly has been appointed as the first University of Arizona presidential scholar by President Robert Robbins, the school announced Tuesday.
Kennerly won the Pulitzer Prize at 25 for his documentation of the Vietnam War and served as chief White House photographer for President Gerald Ford, among many other titles.
The unpaid, honorary appointment highlights the university’s drive to support the arts, humanities and social sciences, which are critical to success in the global economy, according to university officials.
Kennerly will work with the UA’s Center for Creative Photography, located on campus at 1030 N. Olive Road, to develop a series of lectures and events for students and the community that draw on his 60 years of experience.
David Hume Kennerly has photographed every president since Richard Nixon. Here are George H.W. Bush, Barack Obama, George W. Bush, Bill Clinton and Jimmy Carter.
“How wonderful for students to hear a lecture where David (Kennerly) is the one actually talking about the contextual history of his photographs,” said Anne Breckenridge Barrett, the center’s director.
His résumé includes capturing images from 12 presidential campaigns, every president since Richard Nixon, several wars and many other significant moments in history. He was close friends with world-renowned photographer Ansel Adams, who co-founded the UA center.
With this appointment, Robbins “is recognizing visual history as a key element in teaching where we’ve been as a country and society, where we are today and where we are heading,” Kennerly said in a statement prepared by the UA. “Pairing the Center for Creative Photography with the university’s courses in arts, social sciences and humanities will produce informative, entertaining and unique programming and lectures.”
President Gerald Ford prepares to take a picture of David Hume Kennerly, 27, a Pulitzer Prize-winning photographer in the White House Oval Office in Washington, Aug. 11, 1974. Ford named Kennerly as official White House photographer. Kennerly left his assignment with Time Magazine to replace Ollie Atkins in the post. (AP Photo/Charles Harrity)
“We’re thrilled at the center to have his partnership and contribution,” Barrett said.
“It’s a very good indicator of the university’s belief in the center and ability of visuals to connect us all.”
View Kennerly’s portfolio at kennerly.com
The original article written and released by Mikayla Mace of the Arizona Daily Star can be viewed here!
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WASHINTON — SEPT 8: President Ford in his private office at the White House moments before signing the pardon of Richard Nixon Sept 8, 1974. Counsellor Robert Hartmann is with him. (David Hume Kennerly)
DAVID HUME KENNERLY ARCHIVE PROJECT – Why Now?
Every so often, I wake up in the middle of the night from a recurring nightmare. In it, I am watching the final scene of Citizen Kane. The camera slowly glides over hundreds of boxes and crates in a giant dark warehouse, a room that stretched to infinity. Then, the lens settles on a box marked, “Kennerly photos.” I realized that this warehouse contains my life’s work and I watch helplessly as workmen lift boxes filled with images and historic records and pitch them into a roaring fire. My pictures are Rosebud.
Throughout my fifty-year career, I have pursued a relentless mission to document history in the making. With a combination of hard work, research, and a little intuition I have been able to, on numerous occasions, get myself into the room where history is being made. Often, I am the only person there other than the history makers themselves. My photographs have documented the fields of fire during the Vietnam War and the President of the United States as he ended that bitter conflict. I was ringside when Frazier dealt Mohammed Ali his first knock-out at Madison Square Garden and stepped around hundreds of dead bodies in Jonestown. I documented Reagan and Gorbachev during their historic Fireside Summit and, on election night 2000, I was with Bush and Cheney as they realized their presidential contest had ended in a tie.
As a young shooter, barely out of high school, I wanted people to see my pictures; not because they were cool – well, not only because they were cool – but because they revealed moments of history that otherwise would have gone unseen. I am just as driven now to document history with my camera – to peer inside closed doors, to reveal an individual’s character through a portrait or a slice of our country that might be fading away. And I am just as determined to make sure that those images realize their mission of revealing that history to future generations.
In this digital era, images have the potential to provide visceral, visual primary source historic information. They provide dynamic new ways to teach history to future generations in any region around the globe. However, photography collections are expensive and cumbersome to manage. Too often, I have seen collections destroyed, lost, or stored away in a basement or conventional analog archive never to be seen again – their historic content and educational potential lost forever.
2016 marks the 50th anniversary of my career as a professional photographer. To celebrate that extraordinary milestone, I am launching the David Hume Kennerly Archive Creation Project with the objective of transforming my half-century of visual history into a cutting-edge digital educational tool that is fully searchable and available to the public for research and artistic appreciation.
Seeing this collection available to the public would be the realization of my lifelong dream for the possibilities for my collection. It is the flipside of that dark nightmare that haunts me about the many threats to these fragile historic objects. However, I know too well how real my nightmare could be and that making this dream a reality will take an all-out effort and a race against time.
Portions of my work are already housed in wonderful institutions, including the Dolph Briscoe Center for American History and my White House photos at the Gerald R. Ford Presidential Museum & Library. And for more than a decade my wife, Rebecca Soladay Kennerly, and I have worked to make this good dream come true, investing every dollar we could to protect, organize and process my photographs and related materials. A year ago, we hired Randa Cardwell, an extraordinary curator who had recently graduated from UCLA with a Masters Degree in Library and Information Sciences to help with this project. And my collection, spanning a half-decade and containing more than a million items, the size of a small presidential library, is a real monster – impossible to tame by us alone. Our small team is now ready to take the next big steps in helping the Kennerly Collection fulfill its potential as an historic educational resource.
Check out our work in detail at the Archive Page on Kennerly.com.
And please, SIGN UP at the bottom of the Archive Page now to follow our progress in this ambitious project. By signing up you will receive –
• project updates
• archive stories
• ways to help
• appearance dates
• exhibition information
• print sales opportunities
• early sneak peeks at photos we unearth along the way – such as this unpublished collection of images I made of a young lawyer who I first photographed at an impeachment hearing of President Richard Nixon in the House Judiciary Committee in 1974.
It’s going to be quite a journey. Would love to have you along for the ride.
Turkey Day
Archive Deck 9
HISTORICAL FIGURES PHOTOGRAPHED
Kareem Abdul-Jabbar • King Abdullah II of Jordan • Ansel Adams • Eddie Adams • Spiro Agnew • Hafez Al-Assad • Madeline Albright • Jason Alexander • Muhammad Ali • Samuel Alito • Richard Allen • John Anderson • Jennifer Aniston • Yasser Arafat • Neil Armstrong • John Ashcroftl • Les Aspin • Fred Astaire • Tariq Aziz • Joan Baez • Pearl Bailey • Howard Baker • James Baker III • Menachem Begin • Candice Bergen • Sandy Berger, NSC Director • Joseph Bernardin • Yogi Berra • Ali Bhutto • Joe Biden • Tony Blair • Joshua Bolten • Frank Borman • Erskine Bowles • Bill Bradley • James Brady • Tom Brady • John Brennan • William J. Brennan • Stephen Breyer • Leonid Brezhnev • Eli Broad • Jim Brown • Pat Buchanan • Warren Burger • Arthur Burns • George Burns • Richard Burton • Barbara Bush • George H.W. Bush • George W. Bush • Jeb Bush • Laura Bush • Earl Butz • Robert Byrd • Jane Byrne • Joseph Califano • James Callaghan • John Cappelletti • Andy Card • King Juan Carlos of Spain • Stokely Carmichael • Jose Carrares • Ben Carson • Jimmy Carter • William Casey • Fidel Castro • Nicolae Ceausescu • Suzy Chafee • Charles, Prince of Wales • Eddie Cheever • Dick Cheney • Lynne Cheney • Konstantin Chernenko • Jacques Chirac • Chris Christie • Warren Christopher • William Clark • Wesley Clark • Bill Clinton • Bill Cohen • William Colby • William Coleman • Charles Colson • John Connally • King Constantine II of Greece • Bill Cosby • Archibald Cox • Courtney Cox • Walter Cronkite • Ted Cruz • Jamie Lee Curtis • Robert Cushman • Bill Daley • Tom Daschle • Larry David • Miles Davis • Moshe Dayan • Michael Deaver • Miguel del la Madrid • Ron Dellums • Suleyman Demirel • George Deukmejian • John Deutch • John Doar • Anatoly Dobrynin • Bob Dole • Elizabeth Dole • Placido Domingo • Pham Van Dong • William O. Douglas • Julia Louis Dreyfus • Kenneth Duberstein • Lawrence Eagleburger • Clint Eastwood • John Edwards • Julie Eisenhower • Michael Eisner • Rahm Emanuel • Zhou Enlai • Sam Ervin • Ismail Fahmey • Mia Farrow • Martin Feldstein • Carly Fiorina • Leonard Firestone • Mary Fisher • Emerson Fittipaldi • Steve Forbes • Betty Ford • Gerald R. Ford • Abe Fortas • Vicente Fox • Francisco Franco • Tommy Franks • Malcolm Fraser • Joe Frazier • Dr. Bill Frist • Robert Gates • Richard Gebhard • Amin Gemayel • Hans-Dietrich Genscher • Ron Gettelfinger • Edmund Giambastiani • Edward Gierek • Newt Gingrich • Ruth BaderGinsburg • Valery Giscard d’Estaing • John Glenn • Arthur Goldberg • Barry Goldwater • Mikhail Gorbachev • Raisa Gorbachev • Al Gore • R.C. Gorman • Porter Goss • Billy Graham • Alan Greenspan • Andrei Gromyko • King Carl Gustav XVI of Sweden • Phillip Habib • Chuck Hagel • Alexander Haig • H.R. Bob Haldeman • Armand Hammer • Tonya Harding • Bryce Harlow • Mel Harris • George Harrison • Arthur Hartman • King Hassan II of Morocco • Orrin Hatch • Dennis Hatert • Mark Hatfield • Pavel Havel • Michael Hayden • Tom Hayden • Wayne Hays • Christie Hefner • Jesse Helms • Richard Helms • Margaux Hemingway • Emperor Hirohito of Japan • Gil Hodges • Dustin Hoffman • Bob Hope • Huell Howser • Mike Huckabee • E. Howard Hunt • Jon Huntsman • King Hussein of Jordan • Lee Iacocca • Julio Iglesias • Jesse Jackson • Kate Jackson • Michael Jackson • Mick Jagger • Leon Jaworski • Michel Jobert • Pope John Paul II • James Earl Jones • Quincy Jones • Hamilton Jordan • Michael Jordan • John Kasich • Ken Kaunda • Gene Kelly • Grace Kelly • Jack Kemp • Anthony Kennedy • Caroline Kennedy • Ethel Kennedy • John Kennedy, Jr. • Robert F. Kennedy • Ted Kennedy • Nancy Kerrigan • John Kerry • King Khalid of Saudi Arabia • Young-sam Kim • Henry Kissinger • Wayne Knight • Helmut Kohl • Ted Koppel • Tom Korologos • Lisa Kudrow • Nguyen Cao Ky • Mel Laird • Rod Laver • Patrick Leahy • Matt LeBlanc • Jack Lemmon • Jacob Lew • Carl Lewis • Joe Lewis • Patrick Lichfield • Joe Lieberman • John V. Lindsay • Joe Lockhart • Trent Lott • Jeff MacNelly • Norman Mailer • John Major • Makarios III • Fred Malek • David Mamet • Marcel Marceau • Ferdinand Marcos • Imelda Marcos • Thurgood Marshall • Steve Martin • John McCain • Gene McCarthy • Matthew McConaughey • Mike McCurry • Denis McDonough • Denny McLain • Mack McLarty • Edwin Meese • Zubin Mehta • Golda Meir • Nicholas Meyer • John Mitchell • Francois Mitterand • Walter Mondale • Thomas Moorer • Aldo Moro • Hosni Mubarak • Edmund Muskie • Carl Mydans • Richard Myers • Jim Nabors • Bob Nardelli • Gaafar Nimeiry • Paul Nitze • Richard Nixon • Lon Nol • Hideo Nomo • Sandra Day O’Conner • Paul O’Neill • Tip O’Neill • Ed O’Neill • Michelle Obama • Barack Obama • Aristotle Onassis • Jacqueline Kennedy Onassis • Antonio Ordonez • Daniel Ortega • Mohammad Reza Pahlavi • Ian Paisley • Leon Panetta • Chung-hee Park • Rand Paul • Ron Paul • Luciano Pavarotti • Charles Percy • Shimon Peres • H. Ross Perot • Matthew Perry • Rick Perry • David Petraeus • Michelle Pfeiffer • Prince Philip, Duke of Edinburgh • Kim Phuc • Lou Piniella • John Podesta • Pope Paul IV • Adam Clayton Powell • Colin Powell • Jody Powell • Lewis Powell • Billy Preston • Richard Pryor • Qaboos bin Said al Said • Dan Quayle • Queen Elizabeth II • Queen Noor of Jordan • Yitzak Rabin • Prince Rainier III of Monaco • Charles Rangel • Dixie Lee Ray • Ronald Reagan • Nancy Reagan • Don Regan • William Rehnquist • Mary Lou Retton • Condoleeza Rice • Michael Richarda • Tom Ridge • Richard Riordan • Elliot Rirchardson • John Roberts • Brooks Robinson • Nelson Rockefeller • David Rockerfeller • Hillary Rodham Clinton • Ginger Rogers • George Romney • Mitt Romney • Linda Ronstadt • Alice Roosevelt • Joe Rosenthal • Diana Ross • Karl Rove • Marco Rubio • Donald Rumsfeld • Meg Ryan • Nolan RyanPaul Ryan • Anwar Sadat • Khieu Samphan • Bernie Sanders • Susan Sarandon • Paul Sarbanes • Ekias Sarkis • Diane Sawyer • Antonin Scalia • James Schlesinger • Helmut Schmidt • Arnold Schwarzenegger • David Schwimmer • Brent Scowcroft • Tom Seaver • Jerry Seinfeld • Ravi Shankar • Ariel Sharon • Al Sharpton • Cybill Shepherd • Eduard Shevardnadze • Eunice Shriver • Maria Shriver • Julius Shulman • George ShultzNeil Simon • William Simon • O.J. Simpson • Frank Sinatra • John Sirica • Jean Kennedy Smith • Tom & Dick Smothers • David Souter • Giovanni Spadolini • Steven Spielberg • Kenneth Starr • James Stavridis • John Paul Stevens • Potter Stewart • Igor Stravinsky • Suharto • John Sununu • Kakuei Tanaka • Elizabeth Taylor • George Tenet • Margaret Thatcher • The Rolling Stones • The Supremes • Nguyen Van Thieu • Clarence Thomas • Fred Thompson • Strom Thurmond • Josip Broz Tito • Jeffrey Toobin • John Tower • Pierre Elliott Trudeau • Donald Trump • Stansfield Turner • Johnny Unitas • Cyrus Vance • Ben Vereen • John Vessey • Antonio Villaraigosa • Paul Volcker • Kurt Waldheim • Vernon Walters • James Webb • William Webster • Casper Weinberger • William Weld • Paul Wellstone • William Westmoreland • Byron White • Christine Todd Whitman • Ron Widen • Gahan Wilson • Harold Wilson • Natalie Wood • James Woolsey • Herman Wouk • Deng Xiaoping • Lee Kwan Yew • Jiang Zemin • Jiang Zimen • Zhou Ziyang
Extraordinary Circumstances: The Presidency of Gerald R. Ford
On March 26, 2019 an exhibition of my photos will open at the Gerald R. Ford Presidential Museum in Grand Rapids, Michigan. It is the first-ever show of my time as President Ford’s chief White House photographer and is a vivid comparison between then and how things are now. If you are old enough to remember that period, you know it was a dark time in America’s history.
On August 9th, 1974, Richard Nixon had just resigned in disgrace, the first and only president to do so. Along with the political crisis caused by Watergate, the economy was in recession, unemployment was through the roof, and the United States was still fighting a war in Vietnam. But there was a light at the end of that harrowing tunnel. His name was Gerald R. Ford. As Mr. Ford stepped forward under dire and extraordinary circumstances to accept the mantle of the Presidency, he told Americans hungry for straightforward and honest leadership, “our long national nightmare is over.”
That same night President Ford offered me the opportunity to be his chief presidential photographer, in effect tossing me the keys to the kingdom. He and Mrs. Ford allowed me unfettered upstairs, downstairs access to him, his family, and the inner workings of the White House. A new and transparent era was about to begin in American politics, and I had a front-row seat to document it for history.
I photographed every major event during Mr. Ford’s time in office. But the most important image that emerged from those thousands of photos was a close-up portrait of President Ford’s humanity. I saw a man who cared about people for who they were, not for what they appeared to be. I saw a President who was truthful, intelligent, forthright, and courageous, who was concerned about the welfare of the country, a person who was always loyal to his friends and those who worked for him. I saw a true leader and a great man.
All of those qualities were evident at one of the most personal, dramatic, and sad moments of Ford’s Presidency. Moments after President Ford publicly conceded the 1976 election to Jimmy Carter, his close personal aide Terry O’Donnell and I entered the oval office. We were the only ones in there. He put his arm around Terry, thanked him for his service, and asked if there was anything he could do for him. I had tears in my eyes as I photographed that moment. Here was a someone who just lost the biggest prize on earth but was unselfishly thinking about how to help another person. That’s just the way he was. That’s why I loved the guy.
Note: I personally selected all the photographs that will appear in the exhibition. Some have never been seen, and each in its own way reveals the man who worked so hard to heal our nation.