[Mb-civic] The Friendship, and Toughness, of Hugh Sidey - Gerald R. Ford (yes, HIM) - Washington Post Op-Ed

[William Swiggard]

The Friendship, and Toughness, of Hugh Sidey

By Gerald R. Ford
Saturday, November 26, 2005; A25

It wasn't supposed to be this way. Like most men my age, I have given a 
thought or two to my funeral. As a former president, I'm almost required 
to, since the military periodically updates its plans, and each 
presidential family is solicited for personal touches. Among these is a 
choice of eulogists. Thus it was, a few months ago, that I called Hugh 
Sidey.

We'd known each other forever, Hugh coming to Washington just a few 
years after the voters of Michigan's 5th Congressional District sent me 
there. Maybe it was our shared Midwestern background, his transparent 
decency or the tough but fair coverage he accorded me and nine other 
American presidents; in any event, I had always regarded Hugh as a 
friend. So I asked him if he would do me the honor of speaking at 
Washington's National Cathedral when the time came.

I did so in part for symbolic reasons. I like reporters, even if I 
haven't always liked what some wrote about me. I figure that's a pretty 
minor price to pay for a free press in a free society. But I also hoped 
to remind people in our often overheated era that it is possible for a 
politician and a journalist to enjoy mutual respect, admiration and, 
yes, friendship, all the while understanding the necessarily adversarial 
relationship that often exists between those in power and those who 
report on their activities.

Hugh Sidey died this week at the age of 78. Anyone who read him knew 
America's presidents. Anyone who knew him knew America. In a very real 
sense, he never left Greenfield, Iowa, where four generations of Sideys 
practiced journalism with integrity and the perspective that laughter 
uniquely supplies. "A sense of humor . . . is needed armor," he once 
wrote of the presidency. "Joy in one's heart and some laughter on one's 
lips is a sign that the person down deep has a pretty good grasp on life."

Hugh had a sure grasp of life. An insider who never forgot those on the 
outside, he was warm and wise about Washington and its rituals. He 
appreciated Woodrow Wilson's observation that men who arrive in our 
nation's capital -- presidents included -- have a tendency to either 
grow or swell. But he was incapable of cynicism. Hugh scored more than 
his share of scoops, but along with the ability to pierce official 
secrecy went an empathy that enabled him to see the White House and its 
occupants first and always as very human beings.

Whether reporting on the U-2 crisis, the Missiles of October or the 22nd 
of November; Vietnam or Watergate; Richard Nixon's opening to China, or 
Jimmy Carter's high-risk diplomacy at Camp David; Ronald Reagan's years 
of renewal; the tumult of the '90s followed by the shattering events of 
Sept. 11 -- Hugh put readers at the center of events. At the same time, 
he made it possible for millions who might never visit the White House 
to experience it, in good and not so good times, through a president's 
eyes and ears.

Over the years he became something of a Washington institution himself, 
seemingly as much a part of the presidency as Air Force One or Camp 
David. Yet he never behaved like an institution, and I suspect he never 
stopped pinching himself over his extraordinary good fortune.

For his friends, and they are legion, the good fortune was to know and 
learn from and simply enjoy Hugh's company. Now he is forever part of 
the old house whose history he brought to life. Hugh not only explained 
Washington to the rest of America; by being the kind of person he was, 
no less than by setting the highest of journalistic standards, Hugh 
Sidey also embodied the best of America in Washington.

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2005/11/25/AR2005112500875.html?nav=hcmodule
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