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U.S. military medals sent to the White House by veterans as a measure of protest over President Ford’s 1974 Vietnam Reconciliation Program – a program created to provide clemency to Vietnam era draft evaders and military deserters.
       
photo: A0214-05A
In one of his first controversial acts as president, World War II veteran Ford shocks the seventy-fifth annual convention of the Veterans of Foreign Wars in Chicago by announcing his plan for clemency for draft evaders.


       


To heal the nation, around the same time he pardoned Richard Nixon, he offered amnesty to the people who had gone to Canada to dodge the draft.  He wrapped his arms around the country, and said, “Listen, we need to heal.  Let’s move on.”

                                                --Steve Ford