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Former President Gerald Ford, who healed a divided nation in the wake of President Richard Nixon’s resignation and the Watergate scandal, has died in the U.S. state of California at the age of 93.

He had battled pneumonia and undergone two heart procedures earlier this year. VOA National correspondent Jim Malone has a look back at Gerald Ford’s life and legacy from Washington. Mil Arcega narrates.

The 38th President of the United States came from a humble background. Born Leslie King in Nebraska in 1913, Gerald Ford took on the name of his stepfather after his biological parents divorced just a few years after his birth.

He moved with his mother to Grand Rapids, Michigan, and became a football star at the University of Michigan in the mid-1930s.

Gerald Ford served in the U.S. Navy during World War II, after attending Yale University Law School, and then won his first race for Congress in 1948.

Mr. Ford became the leader of Republicans in the House of Representatives in 1965 and developed a reputation as a conservative on budget issues but a moderate on social and foreign policy issues.

It was his popularity among both Republicans and Democrats in Congress that led then President Richard Nixon to choose him as vice president following the resignation of Vice President Spiro Agnew in 1973.

In August, 1974, Richard Nixon became the first U.S. president to resign after the public became convinced of his involvement in the Watergate scandal. “Therefore, I shall resign the presidency effective at noon tomorrow,” he said. “Vice President Ford will be sworn in as President, at that hour, in this office.”

In his first statement to the American people as president, Gerald Ford immediately set about the task of healing the nation’s political wounds in the wake of Watergate.

Filed under: USA by lrenz