“Of all the presidents,” Bob Hope wrote, Gerald Ford “is the one I can call a pal.” The day after Ford pardoned former President Nixon (1913–1994), Hope sent this telegram. “I am certain it was the right thing to do,” Ford replied, “and that time will prove it so.” He also thanked Hope for seeing his wife Betty (b. 1918) after her mastectomy for breast cancer, calling the visit “a bright spot during a very traumatic period in our lives.” Hope loved to kid Ford about his golf game. “His wife founded the Betty Ford Center, which can cure anything except Jerry’s slice,” he quipped. In the 1979 letter, Ford congratulated Hope on receiving an honorary degree, one of more than sixty awarded to Hope during his lifetime.