Ford goes swimming

Press, Volume CXIV, Issue 33611, 13 August 1974, Page 13

Ford goes swimming

(.V.Z. Press Assn — Copyright) ALEXANDRIA (Virginia), August 12. President Ford yesterday became the most photographed swimmer since Mark j Spitz, logging 17 laps of his I personal poobwhile camerai men recorded the daily ritual that, he says, keeps his stomach flat. When President Ford appeared at poolside, he greeted the television camera crews and photographers invited there by his new personal photographer, Mr David Hume Kennerly. His dive into the 40ft-long pool splashed water on the cameramen, who scrambled from one end of the pool to the other as the President i slowly worked his way through the crawl, butterfly, ; breaststroke, and backstroke. He stopped only once. “Let me pull my pants up,” he said.

The President, who has 2001 b well distributed over his 6ft-plus frame, jokingly ordered the photographers to cease when he prepared to climb out of the pool. “No pictures getting out of the pool, that’s the worst,” he said. Mr Ford said that he usually tries to swim between 35 and 40 laps a day—half in the morning and half before dinner, and would miss the exercise at the White House.