Remaking the Imperial Presidency: The Mayaguez Incident of 1975 and the Contradictions of Credibility

Abstract

ABSTRACT The 1975 Mayaguez incident was a missed opportunity to establish a more democratic American foreign policy. President Gerald Ford managed the crisis seeking domestic and international credibility. But his conception of credibility was more fractured than that of his predecessors, who regarded it as synonymous with militarism, presidential primacy, and secrecy. Ford believed the preservation of American power depended upon a renewal of American democracy, and he was determined to preside over a period of national reconciliation after the traumas of Watergate and Vietnam. His sense of credibility therefore pushed him towards diplomacy in addition to militarism, co-operation with Congress in addition to presidential unilateralism, and openness in addition to secrecy. The antinomies within Ford’s sense of credibility were partly a product of his time, which saw an eruption of public scepticism towards American and presidential power, and partly of his temperament and experience endowing him with a reverence for democratic consensus. Throughout the crisis, Ford wrestled with the contradictions embedded within his sense of credibility. Although he ultimately resolved those contradictions in an anti-democratic direction and deepened the imperial presidency, that outcome was not foreordained.