Ford sized up fellow presidents critically

GRAND RAPIDS, Mich. -- In 25 years of interviews with his hometown paper that could be released only upon his death, former President Gerald R. Ford once called Jimmy Carter a "disaster" who ranked alongside Warren G. Harding and said Ronald W. Reagan received far too much credit for ending the Cold War.

"It makes me very irritated when Reagan's people pound their chests and say that because we had this big military buildup, the Kremlin collapsed," Ford told The Grand Rapids Press. He gave the interviews on the condition that his remarks be withheld until after his death.

The best president of his lifetime, Ford said, was a more moderate Republican: Dwight D. Eisenhower. Harry S. Truman "would get very high marks" for his handling of foreign crises, Ford said. He also praised Richard M. Nixon as a foreign policy master, despite the Watergate scandal.

Ford considered John F. Kennedy overrated and Bill Clinton average. He admired George H. W. Bush's handling of the Persian Gulf War and had mixed views of Carter, who defeated Ford in 1976.

In 1981, he said, "I think Jimmy Carter would be very close to Warren G. Harding. I feel very strongly that Jimmy Carter was a disaster, particularly domestically and economically. I have said more than once that he was certainly the poorest president in my lifetime."

But two years later, he praised Carter's performance on the Panama Canal treaty, China, and the Middle East. In 1998, he said Carter "will be looked on as a better president than some comments we hear today."