(Bloomberg) -- - Former U.S. President Gerald R. Ford, who pardoned his predecessor, Richard Nixon, and sought to restore faith in government after the Watergate scandal three decades ago, died today. He was 93.

Ford's death was announced by his wife, former first lady Betty Ford, according to a statement read over the telephone by Elizabeth Wholihan of the Eisenhower Medical Center's public relations department. Ford had been treated at the hospital in Rancho Mirage, California, she said. She declined to provide other information.

Ford became the 38th president on Aug. 9, 1974, immediately after Nixon's resignation under threat of impeachment. When Ford took office, he said: ``I assume the presidency under extraordinary circumstances. This is an hour of history that troubles our minds and hurts our hearts.''

``With his quiet integrity, common sense, and kind instincts, President Ford helped heal our land and restore public confidence in the presidency,'' U.S. President George W. Bush said in a statement.

Ford projected calm during a period of high inflation, looming energy shortages and a waning war in Southeast Asia. Ford, a Republican, lost his bid to win a full term in 1976 to Democrat Jimmy Carter. On Inauguration Day, Carter began his speech: ``For myself and for our nation, I want to thank my predecessor for all he has done to heal our land.''

Declining Health

Ford suffered declining health in the last half-dozen years. He was hospitalized several times in 2006, and had a small stroke while attending the Republican National Convention in Philadelphia in 2000.

He spent three days in August 2006 at the Mayo Clinic in Rochester, Minnesota, to get a heart pacemaker and stents in his coronary arteries to improve blood flow. The previous month, he was taken to a hospital in Vail, Colorado, because he was short of breath. In January, Ford was treated for pneumonia at Eisenhower Medical Center near his home in Rancho Mirage, California.

Ford was the longest-lived former U.S. president, overtaking Ronald Reagan on Nov. 12.

Ford was in his 13th term as a Michigan congressman and the House Republican leader when Nixon appointed him in December 1973 as vice president to replace Spiro Agnew, who quit amid bribery charges stemming from his time in office as Maryland governor. It was the first use of the U.S. Constitution's 25th Amendment to fill a vice presidential vacancy, an amendment Ford helped get enacted.

Becomes President

Eight months later, Ford became president when Nixon resigned rather than face impeachment over White House attempts to obstruct an investigation into the 1972 burglary of Democratic Party headquarters at the Watergate complex in Washington. Ford was the first person to gain the presidency without winning a national election.

In his first speech as president, Ford said, ``our long national nightmare is over'' and pledged to rebuild confidence in government institutions and the struggling U.S. economy.

On Sept. 8, 1974, a month after taking the presidency, Ford pardoned Nixon for any crimes he might have committed as president, although no formal charges were pending.

`Tragedy'

Ford told the country in a speech that Watergate was ``an American tragedy.''

``It could go on and on and on, or someone must write the end to it,'' he said. ``I have concluded that only I can do that, and if I can, I must.''

While he was criticized at the time for undermining the inquiry into the Watergate burglary and its cover-up by issuing the pardon, his actions to overcome Watergate were later applauded.

Ford won the 2001 John F. Kennedy Profile in Courage Award for pardoning Nixon.

Moving to repair the damage of Nixon's resignation, Ford replaced all but three members of Nixon's Cabinet. In December 1974, congressional majorities backed his choice of former New York Governor Nelson A. Rockefeller as his vice president.

A self-described fiscal conservative, Ford proposed tax cuts and spending limits to deal with a budget deficit. He also pushed through Congress legislative proposals to deregulate the railroad and securities industries.

39 Vetoes

Ford confronted the Democratic-controlled Congress by vetoing 39 spending-related measures in his first 14 months. The belt-tightening was aimed at ending a recession. Unemployment rose in his first year to 9 percent before falling to 7.8 percent as he left office -- higher than when he started his term. Meanwhile, gross domestic product swung from minus 4.7 percent rate in the first quarter of 1975, to 9.3 percent a year later, when he campaigned to remain in office.

In foreign policy, Ford was dealt twin setbacks with the collapse of Cambodia and South Vietnam's pro-Western governments in 1975. His approval rating in 1975 rebounded after Marines retrieved a U.S. ship seized by the Cambodian government.

Ford brokered a 1975 truce between Israel and Egypt that installed U.S. observers to separate the two armies. He pursued a policy of detente with China and the Soviet Union, agreeing with Soviet leader Leonid Brezhnev to limit nuclear weapons.

He also signed an executive order to overhaul U.S. intelligence-gathering agencies, including limiting the Central Intelligence Agency's spying powers.

During his 1975 presidential campaign in California, Ford escaped two assassinations attempts in 17 days: Lynette ``Squeaky'' Fromme, in Sacramento, California, on Sept. 5, and Sara Jane Moore in San Francisco, on Sept. 22.

Name Change

Ford was born Leslie Lynch King Jr., in Omaha, Nebraska, on July 14, 1913. He was renamed for his stepfather, Gerald Ford, a paint salesman who married the former president's mother after her divorce.

Ford was the captain of his high school football team in Grand Rapids, Michigan, and a football scholarship took him to the University of Michigan, where he starred as varsity center and played on two national championship football teams. He graduated in 1935 and turned down offers to play professional football to attend Yale Law School, where he also was an assistant football coach. He graduated in the top third of his class in 1941.

Ford returned to Grand Rapids to practice law, then joined the Navy in April 1942. He saw wartime service in the Pacific on the light aircraft carrier Monterey and was a lieutenant commander when he returned to Grand Rapids early in 1946 to resume law practice and dabble in politics.

Warren Commission

Ford was a lawyer before winning election in Michigan's fifth congressional district in 1948, the same year he married Betty Bloomer Warren. The couple had four children.

Ford was re-elected 12 times on a platform of limited government.

In 1963, President Lyndon B. Johnson appointed Ford to the Warren Commission to investigate the assassination of President John F. Kennedy. Two years later, Ford co-wrote a book, ``Portrait of the Assassin,'' on the commission's conclusion that Kennedy was killed in Dallas by a single gunman, Lee Harvey Oswald.

Ford went on to write or co-write three books, including his post-Watergate autobiography, ``A Time to Heal,'' in 1979.

After leaving office, Ford was an adviser to American Express Co. and was on the board of Citigroup Inc., Travelers Group Inc. and the NASD.

President Bush spoke with Betty Ford by telephone tonight ``to express his personal condolences,'' White House Deputy Press Secretary Scott Stanzel told reporters in a conference call. Bush is expected to attend the former president's funeral when it is set, he said.

Ford's hobbies included skiing, tennis and golf.

He is survived by his wife and children, Michael, John, Steven and Susan