Ford, Gerald next year he published Un Nicaragüense en Moscú (A Nicaraguan in Moscow) and became one of UNAN’s top student leaders With the triumph of the Cuban revolution in January 1959, he traveled to Cuba, along with many other Nicaraguan dissidents Upon his return, in April he was arrested and deported to Guatemala From there he joined a newly formed guerrilla group training in Honduras On June 24, 1959, he was severely wounded in a firefight with the Honduran military and Nicaraguan National Guard at El Chapparal The event was a turning point He broke with the PSN and, determined to forge an independent revolutionary movement modeled on Fidel Castro’s 26th of July Movement, he returned to Cuba and began a serious study of Nicaraguan rebel leader Augusto C Sandino In 1961–62 Fonseca and several comrades formed the FSLN, though the idea of using Sandino’s name and image was Fonseca’s He interpreted Sandino as a kind of “path” that, through the FSLN vanguard, would combine Marxist theories of class struggle with Nicaragua’s unique history and culture of popular resistance Henceforth Fonseca was the group’s undisputed leader Organizing relentlessly and writing prolifically, for the next 15 years Fonseca guided the group through many hardships and phases He was killed in a National Guard ambush on November 7, 1976, in the mountains northeast of Matagalpa, nearly three years before FSLN overthrew Somoza Further reading: Borge, Tomás The Patient Impatience: From Boyhood to Guerrilla: A Personal Narrative of Nicaragua’s Struggle for Liberation Willimantic, CT: Curbstone Press, 1992; Fonseca, Carlos Obras: Bajo la bandera del sandinismo Managua: Editorial Nueva Nicaragua, 1985; Zimmermann, Matilde Sandinista: Carlos Fonseca and the Nicaraguan Revolution Durham, NC: Duke University Press, 2000 153 A college football player, graduate of Yale Law School, and navy officer during World War II, Ford became an active Republican after the war and was elected to the House of Representatives in 1948 on an internationalist platform that meshed well with the recent creation of the United Nations He served as a representative for 24 years, proposing no major legislation and focusing instead on negotiating between and supporting the legislation of others As a member of the Warren Commission appointed to investigate the assassination of President John F Kennedy, he altered the Commission’s findings to misreport the location of one of Kennedy’s wounds in order to support the single bullet theory—tampering that was not revealed until 1997 In 1973, while Ford was House minority leader, Nixon’s vice president Spiro Agnew resigned in the middle of the Watergate scandal The Speaker of the House and other congressional leaders made it clear to Nixon that they would accept only the mild, moderate Ford as Agnew’s replacement He was confirmed at the end of the year and became president when Nixon resigned on August 9, 1974 One month later, Ford pardoned Nixon preemptively for any crimes committed against the nation during his presidency The pardon brought great criticism upon Ford: Some accused him of pardoning Nixon in exchange for the resignation that made him president, others thought it was simply terrible judgment Many agreed that it discouraged the pursuit of charges against Nixon, hampering the Watergate investigation; Ford’s supporters have pointed to a 1915 Supreme Court decision that established that for the accused to accept a pardon, he must Michael J Schroeder Ford, Gerald (1913–2006) U.S president Gerald Ford was the president of the United States from 1974 to 1977, following a vice presidency of about eight months He is perhaps best known as the successor to disgraced president Richard Nixon, whom he pardoned, and as the American president during the fall of Saigon President Gerald Ford (left) and Secretary of State Henry Kissinger converse on the grounds of the White House in 1974