Straight Talk From a Member of the First Ladies Club

When Betty Bloomer was a young girl, a fortuneteller read the tea leaves and told her she would someday meet kings and queens. It never occurred to her that it would come true, even after she became Betty Ford, wife of young Congressman Gerald R. Ford. Never, she said, did she dream they’d occupy the White House.

What probably surprises Betty Ford even more is to be treated like royalty herself these days.

She was feted by hundreds of her fans at the Richard Nixon Library & Birthplace on Monday. It’s hard to imagine any guest receiving a more rousing reception.

The former first lady, who turned 79 last month, doesn’t make many public appearances these days. The last time she spoke in Orange County was in 1976, during her husband’s campaign to stay in the White House.

But she had a special affection, she says, for the late Pat Nixon, who preceded her as first lady. So she gladly appeared to help the Nixon Library people kick off their annual spring garden festival.

Betty and Gerald Ford were among the guests at the opening of the Nixon Library in 1990. But her last two appearances there were for the funerals of Pat Nixon and then Richard Nixon. The emphasis Monday was on happier times.

Not many former first ladies can claim greater name recognition than their husbands. But while Gerald Ford takes time for golf and other exercise to keep up his health (at 83, he still swims twice a day, she says), she has remained the very active chairwoman of the Betty Ford Center, the alcohol and drug rehabilitation clinic she helped found 15 years ago in Rancho Mirage as part of the Eisenhower Medical Center.

It’s known as the place where the stars go (Elizabeth Taylor, Liza Minnelli) to fight their addictions. But 30,000 people have sought help there. Ford is proud that half of them are women.

Ford herself is a recovering alcoholic who also suffered an addiction to painkillers. Many of the people who attended her talk at the Nixon Library on Monday just wanted to thank her for her past openness about those problems. No White House occupant before Betty Ford had been so upfront about topics such as breast cancer and, later, drug and alcohol rehabilitation. One woman drew great applause when she told Ford, “You are one of our great American heroes.”

Lois Lundberg, who was chairwoman of the Republican Party in Orange County when the Fords moved into the White House in 1974, calls Betty Ford courageous.

“It could have all backfired for her,” Lundberg said just before the luncheon. “That was a time when you just didn’t talk openly about some issues. It took great courage, which is why people love her so much.”

Both her talk (400 people) and the luncheon (260 people) were sold-out events. Yet Ford describes herself as “just an ordinary woman who happened to be put onstage during an extraordinary time.”

Not everything ran perfectly in the White House, which Ford calls “that marvelous old house.” Its occupants, she said, had their “occasional Waterloos.”

That was as close as anyone came all day to mentioning Watergate, the scandal that ushered the Nixons out of the White House and the Fords in.

This wasn’t the day for that kind of recollection. About the only mention Betty Ford made of it was to say that the day the Nixons left and her husband took the oath of office “was the saddest day of my life.”

Instead, Monday’s talk focused on anecdotes about White House life. The tea leaves story came up. And Ford retold the tale from her autobiography, “The Times of My Life,” about preparing steaks in the backyard of the family home in Alexandria, Va., in 1973, only to learn that in just one hour, she was expected to appear on national TV next to her husband. To her shock, he was about to be named the next United States vice president.

“I didn’t have a thing to wear,” she quipped. That brought another enthusiastic laugh from the crowd. This was Ford country, all right.

Those who have been first lady make for a pretty exclusive club. When she first took the role, Ford said, she found it to be “a demanding job that came with no job description.”

You have to wonder if President Ford ever wished for a more conventional marriage partner during those White House days. There was Betty Ford espousing her support for the Equal Rights Amendment. (You do remember the Equal Rights Amendment, don’t you?) And shocking more than a few with her open attitude when asked what she’d do if her daughter, Susan, had an affair.

But Betty Ford says there was only one time when the president got a little bent out of shape over her conduct. That was when he was trying to hold an emergency Cabinet meeting and she was in an adjacent reception room tossing a basketball with the Harlem Globetrotters.

Said Ford, smiling: “You’d be surprised how quickly a presidential order can put an end to a pickup game.”

Beyond Partisan Politics: In her talk, Ford stuck mostly to family and anecdotes. But during the question period, the openness she’s known for was revealed a little more. It showed in great part why she appeals to Democrats as well as Republicans.

Someone asked her about federal funding for the arts, for example. She shot back that not only do we need more money for the arts, “I thought the amount was too low when my husband was president.”

Regarding federal dollars to fight the drug problem: We’ve got our numbers backward, she said; we spend 60% trying to stop the drugs and only 40% for education and treatment.

“If we don’t do more to educate people about the problem, it’s never going to go away,” she said.

Someone asked if she had any regrets about her White House years. Yes, she said: “When my husband lost the [1976] election.”

Wrap-Up: Betty Bloomer not only met kings and queens, she entertained them. The funniest story she told was about hosting Queen Elizabeth II of England in the private quarters at the White House. Her son Jack bounced into the room all upset because he couldn’t find all his clothes for an event.

“I was embarrassed, but the queen said, ‘Don’t worry, my dear; I’ve got one just like him at home.’ ” Maybe you remember: Prince Charles.

Jerry Hicks’ column appears Tuesday, Thursday and Saturday. Readers may reach Hicks by calling the Times Orange County Edition at (714) 966-7823 or by fax to (714) 966-7711, or e-mail to [email protected]