Day of mourning for Ford

George Bush has declared Tuesday a national day of mourning for former US president Gerald Ford, asking people to gather in places of worship to honour his memory and ordering non-essential government departments to close.

“I invite the people of the world who share our grief to join us in this solemn observance,” Bush said.

Ford’s state funeral is missing some of the grandeur of the one for Ronald Reagan two years ago, a reflection of the 38th president’s modest ways and lesser imprint on the US, according to further planning details released last night.

Part of it will be missing Bush, too. The president will not attend weekend ceremonies including a Capitol Rotunda service, but will return to Washington from his Texas ranch on Monday, pay respects to Ford while his remains lie in state at the Capitol, and speak on Tuesday at services for Ford at the National Cathedral.

Ford, 93, who died on Tuesday, created a posthumous buzz with the release of interviews critical of Bush that he gave to two newspapers on condition they not be published at the time.

He told The Washington Post in 2004 and the New York Daily News in May that Bush was mistaken in his rationale for going to war against Iraq. He also said he was “dumbfounded” when he learned of Bush’s domestic surveillance programme.

If some of the formalities are toned down, Ford’s goodbye is packed with events tied to the touchstones of his life.

A prayer service and public viewing today in Palm Desert, California, near Ford’s retirement haven for 30 years, begins a five-day chain of ceremonies that includes two funeral services in Washington; yet another, in Grand Rapids, Michigan, adopted home town of the Nebraska native, and additional commemorations in Washington.

Readying itself in a hurry, the US capital prepared to receive Ford’s remains and honour the memory of the congressional veteran who achieved the highest office by chance.

The convergence of foreign and US dignitaries, the public and national symbolism marked the ceremonies as a potential target for terrorism, prompting the government to designate the funeral a special security event.

Even so, some of the most regal touches of a state funeral – those most burned in the consciousness of Americans old enough to remember the clicking hooves and the faces of grief of John F Kennedy’s funeral procession – are being bypassed, by request of his family and, most likely, according to Ford’s own wishes.

Barbara Owens, speaking for the Military District of Washington, said the family asked for several elements of the traditional funeral procession to the Capitol to be excluded from the ceremonies.

They are the caisson, a converted cannon wagon drawn by six horses of the same colour; the riderless horse which follows the caisson, with boots reversed in the stirrups of the empty saddle; and the flypast of 21 fighter aircraft, with one executing the “missing man” manoeuvre.

Instead, a flypast will take place in Grand Rapids, where Ford spent most of his childhood and practised law before representing the city in Congress for 25 years. He will be interred there, on a hillside north of his presidential museum.

Ford’s casket will travel the length of the Capitol Building over three days, pausing in front of the House chamber on the way in tomorrow, and in front of the Senate chamber on the way out.

Those unusual extras were designed to honour Ford’s service to both chambers, as a House member and as Senate president, by virtue of his position as vice president.

At the end of the funeral procession from Andrews Air Force Base tomorrow, a military team will carry the coffin up the steps of the East Front of the House. It will then lie in repose in front of the House chamber and be carried into the Rotunda for a service and public viewing.