Inside the President’s Team: Family, Service, and the Gerald Ford Presidency

An eye-opening and exceptional view of the Ford presidency by one of his closest and most-trusted advisors.

Except for his wife Betty, no one was closer to Gerald Ford during his presidency than Bob Barrett. Bob carried the ＂nuclear football＂--the American nuclear codes--and could not let Ford out of his sight. This nerve-wracking job led to a deep friendship with the First Family and gave Bob an unparalleled view of Ford’s historic and unusual presidency. In his memoir, Inside the President’s Team, Bob takes readers into the White House and the Ford home to show the adminstration and the couple as few others could see them.

Bob gives new insights into why Ford decided to pardon Nixon and how he responded to criticism of it; how Ford chose his own vice president (and another for his run in 1976); and what he did with potentially difficult members of the former administration, such as Al Haig and the now-infamous Michael Flynn. Bob provides a front-row view of Ford’s meeting with Leonid Brezhnev in Russia during their famous summit on arms control, and he shows how abandoning our ally South Vietnam put a greater strain on Ford than deciding whether to pardon his predecessor.

Bob also reveals what happened during the two assassination attempts and the decisions that led to the Daily News’s greatest headline: ＂Ford To City: Drop Dead.＂ He was on the campaign trail during the 1976 election, showing from the inside how it all went wrong. Meanwhile, he became so close to the family that he took part in Betty Ford’s intervention and was with the Fords when she was checked into rehab at Long Beach Naval Hospital--scenes that show Ford to be, as Bob describes him, ＂the most decent, honorable, trustworthy person I ever met.＂

Ford’s legacy as a reconciller and healer of a deeply divided America during a time of domestic and international strife comes alive in Inside the President’s Team, and is a celebration of a the impact of living a life of service.

Bob Barrett attended Syracuse University and served two tours in Vietnam with the U.S. Army, attaining the rank of major. He worked at the United States Army War College as its public affairs and communications officer and was offered the position of military aid to President Ford at the start of his administration, where he carried the ＂nuclear football,＂ or nuclear codes. After his work in the White House, Barrett played a crucial role in developing the Gerald R. Ford Museum in Grand Rapids, Michigan; the Ford Presidential Library in Ann Arbor, Michigan; and the Betty Ford Center for drug and alcohol rehabilitation in Rancho Mirage, California.