On Oct. 6, 1976, President Gerald Ford had reason to be optimistic heading into the second debate of a hotly contested campaign against Jimmy Carter. Foreign policy was on the agenda, and the Ford team saw a major opportunity to brush back the former Georgia peanut farmer.
The biggest issue of the day was the Helsinki Accords, which cemented the post-World War II borders and were intended to ease tensions with the Soviet Union. Ford had come in for criticism that he had ceded too much to the Soviets and was ready when one of the moderators, the New York Times’ Max Frankel, raised the charge.
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