I just remembered something that one of the PBS presidential historians said last night after Cindy McCain's treacly tribute to her husband. I was not listening *all* that closely, but I am quite sure that one of them reported this bit of historical weirdness: apparently, after the RNC Convention in 1976, Maria Von Trapp (of The Sound of Music) contacted Gerald Ford so that she could urge him to publicly silence his wife, Betty. She told him that he might have a chance of beating Jimmy Carter if he would just shut Betty up.
In the process of researching this odd morsel of information, I have found all kinds of icky information about the real Maria Von Trapp (and some more nuanced, sympathetic accounts of her life), but nothing about her antipathy toward Betty Ford. I guess I'd like to know if there's any truth to the story....then again, there's enough weirdness and bad behavior in my world. I probably don't need to welcome any more of it into my brain....
2 comments:
This may be strange for me to reply to, but just today I was at the Gerald Ford Presidential Library in Ann Arbor, Michigan, and in a display, they had the Von Trapp letter to Betty Ford, and I began researching what Maria Von Trapp had become so upset at when I stumbled on this blog post. If you have any new information, I'd be interested.
I wish I did! I haven't been able to find out anything about it at all--in fact, I didn't know MVT had written to Betty Ford....
Thanks for your comment.
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