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Red-eyed, Butz emerged to tell newsmen that the use of a racial jibe did not reflect his real attitude. Resigning, said Butz, "is the price I pay for a gross indiscretion in a private conversation." Half an hour later, Ford said that "Earl Butz has been and continues to be a close personal friend and a man who loves his country and all it represents." Accepting the resignation of "this good and decent man," Ford declared, had been "one of the saddest decisions of my presidency."
And so it was done—but badly, and too late. By hesitating, Ford angered many Americans, black and white alike. He seemed to be giving in to pressure, including Carter's—hardly helpful to a man who is running as a strong leader. The incident also evoked images of Washington folderol—the ole-boy network of Republican cronies sticking together. Worried one top Ford aide when it was finished: "I'm afraid some people will start wondering how straight a guy, how nice a fellow the President really is." Appearing at the University of Southern California last week, Ford was ridiculed by some students. When Ford began a sentence with the words, "The greatest danger I see in America today," someone in the crowd yelled, "is tight shoes!"
There was no immediate indication that Ford's firing of Butz would hurt him badly in the Midwest, although some farmers were angry—particularly the big operators who had benefited most from the Secretary's policies, since early 1973, of encouraging production and pushing exports of farm surpluses. During his five years in office, Butz helped increase the farmers' net income by 60%. Allan Grant, president of the conservative American Farm Bureau Federation (2.4 million members), bemoaned Butz's resignation, calling him the best Secretary of Agriculture in the nation's history. But many farmers with small spreads were not at all sad to see Butz go. They claimed that he favored the big producers and agribusiness.
In mid-1972 Butz was city-slickered by the Kremlin. The Soviets, dealing secretly with private companies and paying bargain rates for grain exports that were then subsidized by the Government, bought up 25% of the U.S. wheat crop, plus massive quantities of corn and soybeans. A Senate subcommittee charged Butz's department with "inept management" and "total lack of planning" in overseeing the deals. The resulting domestic food shortage—along with other factors—helped drive up retail food prices 20% in 1973.
Butz survived his jousts with consumers, environmentalists and what he called the "striped-pants boys" in the State Department. He lived down the uproar from many Catholics, notably
Italian Americans, after he cracked in 1974 that the Pope should not oppose birth-control programs because "he no playa da game, he no make-a da rules." But when he tried to impress John Dean and Pat Boone, it was Earl's last laugh.