Gerald Ford

Thirty-eighth President and the only person to hold that office without winning a national election. Nixon appointed Ford as Vice President under the Twenty-Fifth Amendment's Section 2 after Spiro Agnew resigned in October 1973; Ford became President when Nixon resigned on August 9, 1974. His pardon of Nixon one month later — citing the Twenty-Fifth Amendment and the need for national healing — remains one of the most controversial uses of presidential power.