America's 'accidental president' dies at 93

Gerald Ford, who picked up the pieces of Richard Nixon’s scandal-shattered White House to become the only unelected president in America’s history, has died at 93, his wife said today.

Ford, America’s 38th president, had battled pneumonia in January this year and underwent two heart treatments – including an angioplasty – in August at the Mayo Clinic in Rochester, Minnesota.

He was the longest living president, followed by Ronald Reagan, who also died at 93.

Ford had been living at his desert home in Rancho Mirage, California, about 130 miles east of Los Angeles.

He was an accidental president; Nixon’s hand-picked successor, a man of much political experience who had never run on a national ticket.

However, Ford was as open and straightforward as Nixon was tightly-controlled and conspiratorial.