THE MAN WHO PARDONED NIXON

The nastiest book yet on Gerald Ford--by the former Nixon aide who spelled out his disillusionment in Game Plan for Disaster. Unlike Richard Reeves (A Ford, Not a Lincoln, 1975), Mollenhoff doesn't indict Ford for just being dumb. He dredges up a good deal of circumstantial evidence to support insinuations of a pre-resignation ""deal"" between Ford and Nixon on the pardon. He goes on to underline Ford's key role in squashing the House Banking and Currency Committee's early efforts to get at Maurice Stans, CREEP, and Watergate, as far back as '72. Pointing out that Ford's ""compassion"" for the fallen Nixon not only wrecked his own credibility but also crippled his Congressional anti-inflation programs, Mollenhoff hints darkly that the many extant but undisclosed Ford-Nixon tapes, particularly their conversations after Ford became Vice President, will some day reveal machinations between them. Mollenhoff also lashes out at Ford's veto (unsuccessful) of the Freedom of Information Act, his appointment of besmirched John Connally to the Foreign Intelligence Advisory Board, and his zealous maintenance of Nixon's ""executive privilege"" line. All this to nail down his case against ""Mr. Amiability,"" the man of candor who ""stretched his political power to the limit to shield"" his duplicitous chum. Mollenhoff's low estimate of Ford is shared by many people; but the personal rancor one senses here toward the man whom not so long ago ""I regarded as a friend"" taints his case.