Ford says he is ‘his own man’

Press, Volume CXIII, Issue 33384, 16 November 1973, Page 9

Ford says he is ‘his own man’

(N.Z.P.A.-Reuter—Copyright) WASHINGTON, November 15. The Vice-Presidential nominee Mr Gerald Ford, a staunch supporter of the Nixon Administration’s policies, told the House Judiciary Committee today that he was “his own man.”

He was giving testimony before the committee as it opened its hearing on his nomination to the VicePresidency after Mr Spiro Agnew’s resignation last October. In a prepared opening statement, Mr Ford said that since he entered Congress in 1949, he has publicly both supported and criticised the in office. “To be honest, I imagine that as Vice-President you do your Presidential criticising a little more privately than publicly,” he said. “But those of you who know me know that I am my own man and that the only pledge by which I have bound myself in accepting the President's trust and confidence

is that by which we are all bound before God and under the Constitution, to do our best for America.” In earlier testimony before the Senate Rules Committee, Mr Ford had said he would have handled the Watergate tape controversy differently than President Nixon. But he reiterated his general support for the President in his testimony before the House Judiciary Committee. He noted that he and Mr Nixon had been friends | for a quarter of a century but added: “His political philosophy is very close to my one ... He was chosen quite emphatically by the people a year ago. I—if confirmed as Vice-President-— will not have been.”