Ford faced a serious challenge for the Republican nomination from Ronald Reagan, the conservative former governor of California. However, by that time, no amount of money could have prevented the North's victory, and news footage of the South Vietnamese civilians desperately trying to get in to the American embassy in the hours before Saigon fell provided some of the most enduring images of the end of the conflict. In April 1975, the president asked Congress for $1 billion in aid for Vietnam, Laos, and Cambodia and was refused. The Ford administration also presided over the final act of the Vietnam War. In the fall of 1975, Israel agreed to return most of the Sinai Peninsula, which had been captured during the 1967 Six‐Day War, to Egypt. In the Middle East, Kissinger continued his shuttle diplomacy of traveling back and forth between Israel and Egypt, begun after the 1973 Yom Kippur War. Brezhnev also agreed to permit more Soviet Jews to emigrate, a decision helped perhaps by Congress having linked trade with the Soviet Union to Jewish emigration. In August 1975, at a summit conference held in Helsinki, the two leaders agreed to recognize the postwar boundaries of Western and Eastern Europe. Détente with the Soviet Union remained a high priority, and in late 1974, Ford and Brezhnev met to work out the basis for the SALT II agreement (the negotiations of which had begun in 1972 and would continue into the Carter administration). In foreign affairs, Henry Kissinger stayed on as secretary of state, providing continuity for American foreign policy. Only then did the administration shift gears and try to stimulate the economy through a large tax cut. Ford also reduced spending and the Federal Reserve Board raised interest rates, but the recession worsened and unemployment reached nine percent. The campaign, with its red and white WIN buttons, had little effect. The president focused on inflation and launched the Whip Inflation Now ( WIN) campaign, a voluntary effort that called on Americans to save their money rather than spend it. The unexpected combination of inflation and high unemployment continued to plague the country. Gerald Ford faced the same economic problems as Nixon and was no more successful in dealing with them. From Vice President to President: George H.W.The United States under Ford and Carter.A New Society: Economic & Social Change.American Society and Culture, 1865–1900.

Economy under various presidents