John Katsilometes recalls the 1974 race for attorney general of Nevada, in which Gerald Ford played a role

Thursday, Jan. 4, 2007 | 7:04 a.m.

In 1974, during a campaign for attorney general of Nevada pitting two future governors of the state, Richard Bryan was hit with a haymaker.

Or so he thought.

"I ran against Bob List that year, and he and Frank Fahrenkopf (who would later become the chairman of the Republican Party and who today is president and chief executive of the American Gaming Association) were big Ford backers," Bryan recalled during a phone interview Wednesday afternoon, after I asked for his memories of the late President Gerald Ford. "I am in this very tight race, and they invited Ford to come to Nevada. Ford agreed, and I thought, 'Oh my lord, he's bringing the president here.' It was a very big deal for an attorney general's race, and List was already a very tough opponent."

But soon after Ford committed to campaign for List, the president announced his controversial pardon of Richard Nixon.

"After that, I said, 'OK! Bring him out!' " Bryan said with a laugh. "I thought, 'This has gone from a political coup to the kind of political blunder that could really help me.' And I reminded people (of the pardon), sure. But in the end I don't know if it helped or hurt either one of us. I lost fair and square, by 600 or 700 votes."

Bryan, a Democrat, won the rematch, beating the incumbent List in the 1982 governor's race, and went on to serve two terms in the U.S. Senate before leaving politics in 2001. He has since joined the Las Vegas law firm Lionel Sawyer & Collins. Bryan's comment on Ford's legacy: "He was a fine man, and certainly did a lot to heal the process in a very difficult time."

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