Presidents Jimmy Carter and Gerald R. Ford at Ford’s presidential library.
HAIL! TO THE CHIEF
Presidential Visits to the University of Michigan
Jimmy Carter
A blossoming friendship with his Oval Office predecessor brought former President Jimmy Carter to campus several times throughout the 1980s.
Carter joined former President Gerald R. Ford for three separate conferences held on North Campus at the Gerald R. Ford Library.
Rivals in the 1976 presidential campaign, Carter and Ford became friends after leaving the White House. “Our relationship is a tribute to the American political system,” Ford said when the two came to campus Feb. 9–10, 1983, for a public policy seminar.
Carter returned to campus in November 1984 to join Ford for a Ford Library symposium on new weapons technology and Soviet-American relations. Their final bi-partisan appearance at U-M together was in December 1988 for the “All-Democracies Conference.”
Sources: The Washington Post; U-M records
Photo: U-M News and Information Services records, Bentley Historical Library, University of Michigan