It was inevitable that upon the death of President Gerald R. Ford, his pardon of Richard Nixon, the man who had put him the line of presidential succession, would be reexamined.

Many retrospectives of that decision, widely unpopular at the time, now argue that Ford did the right thing in wiping the slate clean for the man who had named him to be his vice president in late 1973 after the resignation in disgrace of Spiro Agnew.