ROBERT HARTMAN

Hartman had drafted the Inauguration Speech for Ford to use the next day, when President Nixon would resign in disgrace. When Ford reviewed the speech to make his personal changes he questioned the use of “our long national nightmare is over” and thought that he should not use it. Hartman reacted very strongly as the quotation demonstrates. After much discussion, Ford decided to leave it in, and it became the most quoted line of that speech and perhaps his entire career. Years later he expressed his gratitude to Hartman for not only writing the line, but taking such a firm position to persuade Ford to use it. See {641353} for Ford’s inaugural address quotation that became so famous.

Hartman and the other few advisors who Ford had consulted had opposed the idea of a Nixon pardon. However, Ford went ahead with it, and it probably cost him the reelection. Most people two decades later tended to agree with Hartman’s later view in this quotation.

Hartman had drafted the Inauguration Speech for Ford to use the next day, when President Nixon would resign in disgrace. When Ford reviewed the speech to make his personal changes he questioned the use of “our long national nightmare is over” and thought that he should not use it. Hartman reacted very strongly as the quotation demonstrates. After much discussion, Ford decided to leave it in, and it became the most quoted line of that speech and perhaps his entire career. Years later he expressed his gratitude to Hartman for not only writing the line, but taking such a firm position to persuade Ford to use it. See {641353} for Ford’s inaugural address quotation that became so famous.

Hartman and the other few advisors who Ford had consulted had opposed the idea of a Nixon pardon. However, Ford went ahead with it, and it probably cost him the reelection. Most people two decades later tended to agree with Hartman’s later view in this quotation.