Last week I watched – with mixed feelings – services for Gerald Ford. I did a college internship for Ford in 1966. My grandfather respected Ford and had contributed to his campaigns. My politics had become increasingly anti-war as well as more troubled by economic injustice. I would have preferred an internship with Michigan’s senior senator, Democrat Phil Hart. Although my grandfather knew Hart, he had always opposed him. I lacked the nerve to disappoint my grandfather and resolved to do the best job I could regardless of my personal views.

Ford was then minority leader of the House. I had lunch with him twice and also spoke with him on a couple other occasions. One Saturday afternoon I had gone to his office, generally unoccupied on weekends, to study for comprehensive exams I was scheduled to take the next fall. Ford walked in, amiably inquired why I was working on a beautiful weekend afternoon, and then retired to his private room. In a few minutes, the phone rang. I took the call and transferred it to him. Afterwards, he thanked me and volunteered the explanation that it was Dick Nixon. Most surprisingly, he then explained to me that Nixon and he were discussing the best ways Nixon would be of service to Republican candidates for the House that fall.

I started out writing constituent mail for him, but later in my stay his administrative assistant requested a favor of me. Could I write a five-minute speech the minority leader had been asked to give on the relation of religion to politics? Neither Ford nor his staff knew how to approach the subject. I put myself in the mindset of a moderately conservative Republican. I wrote a short essay about Christianity’s role in buttressing the work ethic on which our society’s health depends and on the place of Christian charity in assisting those who cannot survive the demands of a competitive economy. Ford and his staff loved the essay.

In retrospect, I find this an interesting commentary on the times. One would be hard put to find any member of Congress today who does not have well crafted remarks on religion and politics.

Both Ford and his staff were down to earth and friendly. They did not badmouth their Democratic opponents. But for me, then and now, the more interesting question is how decent people end up participating in collective acts with hideous consequences. Since I have always had qualms about whether I should have worked for political causes I did not share, this question is especially salient.

Ford is celebrated as the man who pardoned Nixon and thereby healed the nation. He is vilified by a few on the left for the same act. For me, however, the problem lies in how and when Ford pardoned Nixon. Crimes committed on behalf of political causes are both more serious and also harder to punish appropriately than other forms of crime. The perpetrators often have many deeply devoted adherents and critics. Punishment often spills over into endless cycles of revenge and retribution.

The South African Truth and Reconciliation Commission is a model that bears some relevance to these questions. The commission requires of those who are to be pardoned a full accounting of their misdeeds so that these become a matter of public record and are acknowledged as wrong by the perpetrator. Acknowledgement of political misdeeds makes these and their causes a subject of future political debate. And since such misdeeds are almost always at least in part social and benefit some while hurting others, forms of collective compensation can at least be considered. Nixon had appropriately been forced from office. Ford could have let the subsequent investigation proceed and then offer Nixon a pardon only on condition of his full recounting and admission of his deeds.

Ford, of course, was also the man who at least metaphorically told New York City to “drop dead” in the 1975 fiscal crisis and also tacitly endorsed Indonesia’s invasion of East Timor, which killed 200,000 innocent civilians. Nonetheless, I am not inclined to portray him as singularly evil.

These destructive acts speak to the relatively closed nature of our media, a national security apparatus that insulates citizens and even political leaders from discordant facts, and a politics that overly values consensus, especially on foreign policy. They are also symptomatic of a left politics that inadequately addresses broadly shared notions of economic opportunity.

Finally, labor and even peace groups until very recently had few international connections. East Timorese or down-and-out New Yorkers are virtually invisible in our politics to even those leaders among us who would not scorn or damage a helpless person standing in front of them. In such a context, even good people end up committing thoughtlessly evil acts.

Whether the new Democratic leadership will move beyond such easy fixes as the minimum wage to consider more broadly the ways current trade and labor policies harm both working-class citizens and so called “illegal aliens” remains to be seen.

John Buell is a political economist who lives in Southwest Harbor. Readers may contact him at jbuell@acadia.net.