The celebration of the New Year means that Monday is a federal holiday for most federal employees.
President Bush has also issued an Executive Order closing all executive departments, independent organizations and other agencies of the Federal government on Tuesday, January 2, 2007, as a mark of respect for Gerald R. Ford, the 38th President of the United States.
The order includes federal offices, with the exception of those offices and installations in the Department of State, the Department of Defense, the Department of Justice, the Department of Homeland Security, or other federal organizations where the agency head determines it is necessary to remain open for reasons of national security or defense, or other essential public business.
Here is the President’s Executive Order and the OPM notice regarding the closure requirement.
Gerald Ford served in Congress for 25 years. He is already remembered as a president who put the good of the nation ahead of his personal political situation when he pardoned President Nixon and Vietnam draft dodgers. His pardon of Richard Nixon led to his defeat byJimmy Carter in the following presidential election but is now often seen as an act that helped to heal the nation over the divisions of the Vietnam war and the Watergate scandal.
His funeral will begin on Friday, December 29 in California and he will be buried in Michigan after a state funeral to be held in Washington, DC.